Shelby Corcoran Leads by One
by AlexRyzlinGold
Summary: Shelby may not have been at McKinley for a long time, but she still knew her students, and she would defend them with everything she had. Even when they did things they probably shouldn't. Warning: Finn and Will are not portrayed well. At all. Canon pairings, Shelby/San friendship. M for language/swearing. INCOMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Shelby Corcoran Leads by One

**Author:** Alex Gold (Ryzlin)

**Fandom:** Glee

**Pairings: **Brittany/Santana, other canon pairings

**Rating:** Teen (swearing)

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee. I would like to though.

**Spoilers:** Season three mainly, but everything else is fair game to be drawn on.

**Summery:** Shelby may not have been at McKinley for a long time, but she still knew her students, and she would defend them with everything she had. Even when they did things they probably shouldn't. AU after IKAG.

**Chapter One**

The slap landed across Finn's face, and a second later Shelby was hurrying down to Santana and grasping the girl's wrists. She could see Will moving to stand up from where he had been sitting next to her.

"Santana." It wasn't disapproving, just a way for Shelby to get the girl's attention.

They stared at each other for a few seconds. Shelby took in the tears that threatened to spill down Santana's cheeks. Shelby gently wrapped her arm around Santana's shoulders and led her from the auditorium. She caught Brittany's attention and gestured for Brittany to follow them with a nod of her head. It didn't take Brittany long to jump down off the stage and run after them. She grabbed Santana's hand as they stepped out of the auditorium, and as soon as the door slammed shut, Brittany let out a quiet whimper. She brushed her free hand across Santana's tear-stained cheek.

Shelby led them to her office. Well, it wasn't really an office, just a (very) small classroom that had been renovated (with Shelby's own money of course). She led Santana and Brittany towards the couch in the corner and sat them down before dragging her desk chair to sit in front of them.

Santana was crying silently, her arms wrapped around Brittany, pulling Brittany as close to her as possible. Brittany sat practically on Santana's lap, her head tucked under Santana's chin. Shelby could only just hear the soft sobs Brittany was making. Shelby sat on her chair awkwardly. She wanted to help in someway. To hug both of the girls and tell them it would be alright. But she was pretty sure Santana wouldn't appreciate it (she never seemed to like anyone besides Brittany touching her) and Shelby was pretty clueless when it came to Brittany. Well, when it came to Brittany and anything other than Santana. Brittany with Santana was pretty obvious. But she was a mother, damn it, and seeing kids cry made her want to cry.

She had known something was off during the whole performance. Shelby hadn't missed the looks Santana and Brittany had given each other, and she certainly hadn't missed the look of pure misery on Brittany face when Santana had taken a moment's pause before singing her first solo line. Santana was never anything but professional when it came to actually performing, so it had shocked Shelby that something had obviously disturbed the girl enough for her to miss her queue. The band had covered up admirably, and so had the rest of the Troubletones. Santana's performance had been amazing, absolutely breath-taking. She had shown such raw emotion. It was probably one of Santana's best performances yet. It may not have been the best circumstances, but sue her; she was still a music teacher.

Brittany had stopped sobbing and was peering at Shelby, her face still half hidden by Santana's neck.

"Miss. C, could you maybe leave. It's weird having you watching us."

Shelby smiled sadly and somewhat awkwardly at her.

"Of course I can." She stood up and moved to her desk, pulling out a box of tissues and a block of chocolate. She placed them on the chair she had just vacated.

"I'll be outside; making sure no one comes in. Um, no sex in my office please."

Shelby shut the door quietly behind her and leaned against it. She let out a sigh. Teenagers were hard. She was not looking forward to the drama Beth would get into, and Shelby was almost certain there would be a lot of drama. She barely had a minute to collect her thoughts before Will came running down the hall.

"Shelby!"

"Will."

"Where's Santana?"

"In my office. I left her and Brittany in there with a box of tissues and some chocolate."

He frowned slightly. "Chocolate?"

"It does wonders for a person's emotional state. I always had some on me when I worked at Carmel. Show choir kids are always very emotional."

Will nodded. "Yeah, they are, aren't they?" He moved forward, as if to open her office door, but Shelby didn't move.

"Uh, Shelby?"

"What do you think you're doing Will?"

"I want to talk to Santana."

Shelby sighed and slowly shook her head. "I don't think now is a good time. She's wants to be alone with Brittany."

"Shelby, I need to talk to her."

"She's not ready to talk to anyone but Brittany."

"You don't even know what this is about." Will scoffed.

"I may not know, William, but I do know Santana. She thinks she's hard to read, but she's not. Right now she's traumatized, and I suspect it has something to do with her walls."

"Her walls?"

"Santana is a very guarded individual. She puts up walls to stop people getting to close. Anyone can see that, and anyone can see that those walls are crumbling right now."

Will sighed deeply. "Suspecting is not the same as knowing, and when it comes to knowing, I know these kids better than you do."

He was patronizing her. Shelby hated it when people patronized her.

"No you don't, Will. You've known them longer than me, but you don't know them better. They left you for a reason, and I bet you don't even know what it is. I talk to my girls, and I'm there for them if they need my help. That's more than you can say."

For the first time, Will looked slightly hurt. "My students talk to me."

"So why weren't you at their dodge ball game? I admit that I was only told about it afterwards, but they did tell me you weren't there."

"What dodge ball game?"

Shelby couldn't help it, she laughed at him. "The dodge ball game that Santana and Finn organized. New Directions against the Troubletones."

"Was anyone hurt?"

Shelby shrugged. "None of my girls were, but they didn't mention anyone from New Directions being hurt. The Troubletones won, just in case you were wondering." She managed not to look smug. Years of acting had paid off.

"This isn't important right now. I still need to talk to Santana."

"No. Not now. She's not ready."

"She needs to face the consequences of her actions sometime."

"What about Finn?"

"What?" Will looked confused, genuinely confused.

"What about Finn? It's not a hard question, Will. He obviously did something to upset Santana. She's been cutting back on the name calling and threats since Mercedes told her to."

"Santana doesn't listen to anyone but herself."

"That's not true."

"Yes it is. Who do you think she listens to?"

"She listens to Sue. She listens to Brittany. She's started listening to both Mercedes and I. If she doesn't listen to you, then I suspect it's because she doesn't respect you."

Shelby finished the comment in her head. 'And I don't blame her.'

"You can say whatever you want, Will, but I'm not letting you in my office. I care too much about Santana to let you in."

All Will could do was glare at her.

Shelby Corcoran - 1

William Schuester - 0


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee. I would like to though.

**Author's Note:** Replies to comments are at the bottom. :)

**Chapter Two**

Will stood there, glaring at Shelby for a long minute before storming off down the hallway. And they called Rachel a drama queen. Shelby could only guessed he was going to Principal Figgins. She had never been happier that her being hired provided so much money for the school. Figgins loved her, and right now that was what she needed. Shelby didn't have any illusions as to who Figgins would side with on most matters between them and that would be Will.

Shelby felt the door handle beneath her hand (just another way to stop Will from opening the door) start to move. She quickly turned around and took a step back. When the door opened, Brittany poked her head out.

"Um, Sanny wants to talk to you."

Brittany stepped out into the hallway and held the door open for Shelby. The door closed with Brittany on the other side and Shelby heard faint footsteps leading away from her office.

"Where's Brittany going?"

Santana shrugged, her face turned away from Shelby. "I asked her to get something for me."

Shelby stood awkwardly by the door until Santana turned and gave her a weird look. Her eyes were red and puffy, but she was mostly composed. Shelby was impressed.

"You can sit down you know. It's your office."

"Right." Shelby sat on the chair opposite Santana. She noticed the box of tissues and chocolate were now sitting next to Santana, both of them used.

"Are you feeling better now, Santana?"

Santana shrugged again. "I guess so. I … uh, wanted to thank you."

Shelby smiled at Santana. "You're welcome. Can I ask what for, exactly?"

Santana looked away again. She was very clearly uncomfortable.

"This school is a joke. Most of the teachers here can't spell their own names, let alone teach and Figgins is so concerned about his budget that he thinks 'affordable renovations' use cardboard. But most people forget that this is a public school in the middle of nowhere, that no one cares about and all the principals have been just like Figgins."

Shelby had no idea where Santana was going, but she sat silently and waited.

"The walls in this school are paper thin, and if there's no one else around, you can hear what other people say." Santana gestured towards the door. "So, thanks. For standing up for me against Mr. Schue."

Shelby smiled again. She didn't know how, but Santana had made this whole conversation really, really awkward. She ducked her head to try and catch Santana's eyes, but Santana still wouldn't look at her. It took a few minutes before Santana looked up, but when she did, Shelby spoke.

"You're welcome, Santana. And if you find, in the future, that you need help, you can come to me. I can't promise that I can fix everything, but I can try. If you want to talk to me about what happened with Finn, I'll listen."

Santana looked away again, but let out a small, humorless laugh. "At least you're honest, but I don't really want to talk about it right now."

"To you, I'll try my hardest to be. I haven't always been so … truthful with my intentions."

"I know. I was there for the whole Jesse St. Dickhead thing."

Shelby considered protesting to Santana's language, but if she was being honest to herself, it was a pretty accurate description of Jesse. The boy could sing, but Shelby had almost always found it hard to stomach his attitude.

"It wasn't my proudest moment."

"Making out with Schuester was probably worse."

Shelby grimaced. "Yes, but do I even want to know how you know that?"

"Sue."

"Ah. That woman is … interesting, to say the least."

Santana smirked, but didn't say anything. The silence between them was broken when Brittany came back. She sat down next to Santana and handed the other girl a tape before pulling Santana into a loose hug. Santana held the tape out to Shelby.

"Finn said some stuff, and someone overheard, and now everyone's going to find out. And I … I still don't want to talk about it."

Shelby took the tape from Santana.

"Is there anything else I should know?"

"Yeah, Sue will want that back by tomorrow."

"Okay, now why don't you two go home?"

Brittany pulled Santana up, and they made there way out of the office. Thankfully the mash off had taken place after school, and no one was around to witness the Head Cheerleader's break down. Shelby was sure that would have created a scandle.

Shelby walked to one of the cupboards that lined the wall and opened it, revealing a TV, a DVD player and a VCR. She slipped the tape in and pressed play. The video was barely even a minute long. After it ended, Shelby sat in silence. _That little bastard. No wonder Santana slapped him. And who the hell is 'The Sauce'?_

Shelby ejected the tape and exited her office. A short walk down the hallway later and she knocked on Sue's office door.

"Come in."

Shelby did as she was told.

"Sue, Santana said you'd want this back."

Sue took the tape and placed it on her desk. "So?"

"That's just wrong."

Sue nodded and gestured for Shelby to take a seat. "Yes it is. I know you arts people. You're going to try and help Santana, and for once, I'm actually going to let one of you people do that. At first I thought William may be the best for it, seeing as both he and Santana have the lesbian in common. What with his lesbian hair, and her patronage at the Sapphic temple of Brittany Pierce, but really, Santana has both better fashion sense and style than William. He also idolizes the freakishly tall man-child, so someone else should probably step in where William would normally attempt, and I might add fail spectacularly, to actually help. If you're going to help Santana, don't fail. It's better to not try than to fail. A lesson I wish William had learnt long before he made his band of loser and I lost my top Cheerios to them."

Sue sighed heavily. "They'll never be the same, and I spent so much effort molding them into the perfect worker drones to their Queen Bee. That's me, by the way."

Sue stood up and walked around her desk so she could lean on it and looked down at Shelby. She took off her glasses and held them in one hand.

"William will have Figgins and the rest of Lima behind him no matter what. He's the most average, middle class, white male you could ever find and everyone will want to believe that he's right, because that will make _them _right."

Shelby Corcoran - 1

William Schuester – 1

Sue grinned evilly. "But, if you do well by my head cheerleader, you'll have me by your side. And I happen to have blackmail material on almost every teacher, and all of the members on the School Board. I also know that Santana has blackmail material on William and his pet marmoset. You should ask her about it. It's disgusting."

Shelby grinned at Sue. "So, we're in this together?"

"That's what I said, Idina."

"Then I guess we'd better start planning."

No matter how useful Figgins was in McKinley, Sue was far more influential, and she was equally as influential outside of the school thanks to 'Sue's Corner'.

Shelby didn't really understand where the nickname 'Idina' came from though. She knew who Idina Menzel was, of course, and agreed that they did look shockingly similar, but it was _Sue_. For a woman who hated the arts, she sure seemed to know a lot about them. But Shelby wasn't going to complain. At least the nickname wasn't offensive.

Shelby Corcoran - 2

William Schuester – 1

/-/-/-/-/

**Lydrin** – It's nice to know I'm not the only one who saw that. :)

Walsh – You're right. Will thinks he's great, but eh, I've seen better. Much better. XP

**Sage V. Darktalon**– I see you're stalking another of my stories. :P

**dancelikeheya**, Boo, **IceTrekkie****, ****val-cb****, ****Summer114****, ****LauracSingi****, ****BlueStarProductions****, ****onebratsis****, ****teezee****, ****kid2150****, ****Glee-Potter-Wars-and Ferb****, ****Laucha****,** Mello1205 – Thank you for your comments and support. I'm continuting!


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee. I would like to though.

**Chapter Three**

Shelby had barely even sat down in her office before the office receptionist walked in unannounced and told her she had a meeting in Figgins office. She wasn't too surprised to find only Figgins and Will in the office when she arrived.

"About time, Shelby."

Shelby gave Will a dirty look before turning to Figgins. "I apologise for being late, Principal Figgins. I wasn't aware there was a meeting until a few moments ago."

"After what happened yesterday, you should have known there would be a meeting of some sort."

Shelby sat down on one of the chairs in front of Figgins' desk and rearranged her skirt.

"Of course I thought there would be some sort of meeting. But seeing as I wasn't invited to the initial meeting involving the campaign promotion, I doubted I'd be invited to subsequent meetings. Even if I was present when Santana slapped Finn."

Principal Figgins sighed. "This isn't about Santana slapping Finn, though that meeting will be later today, and you are invited Shelby. This meeting is due to William complaining to me about the way you handled the situation afterwards."

Shelby frowned. "I did what I thought was best for Santana, and I stand by that decision. I don't understand why Will has a problem with that."

"The problem," Will stated. "is that Santana is one of my students and you should have let me deal with it. Instead, you stopped me from helping."

Shelby placed a hand against her chest. "I'm sorry, Will. I didn't know that you could own students. Where do I sign up for mine?"

"What?"

"You can't _own _a student, Will. Santana barley turns up to your Spanish classes because she's already fluent in it, and she's no longer a member of New Directions, so I fail to see how she is 'one of your students'. I see and talk to her more than you do. If she's anyone's student, then she's either Sue's, or mine. You don't interact with her anymore unless it's in competition to the Troubletones, and before that, when Santana was a member of the New Directions, it's my understanding that you barely paid any attention to her. She doesn't respect you, and after you kicked her out of New Directions, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that she doesn't even like you."

Shelby took a deep breath, having worked herself up slightly during her rant.

"I'm sorry that you feel I slighted you somehow, Will. But I'm not going to coddle you at the expense of Santana's wellbeing. Believe it or not, she's better off without you trying to help her."

Shelby Corcoran - 3

William Schuester – 1

She turned to Figgins. "Santana was in a very stressful, emotional situation and only wanted to be comforted by her best friend. It was my personal judgment that Will's involvement would hurt, rather than help the situation. Now, I believe I am relieving Mrs. Callis first period, and I should prepare for that. Can I go?"

Figgins nodded. "Yes, of course. Thank you for clearing the situation up. I'll inform you when we have the meeting about Santana's recent behaviour."

Shelby stood and left, but she was just able to make out Figgins' words to Will.

"Well, there you have it William. Shelby was doing what she thought best. I can't discipline her for that. Besides, she's not actually hired by the school, but by Mr. Motta."

Well, that wasn't technically true. For Shelby to do any sort of teaching at McKinley she had to be hired by the school. But, if Figgins wanted to stay out of the situation, Shelby wasn't going to stop him. At least not for the moment.

/-/-/-/-/

It was later that day that Shelby walked with Santana to Principal Figgins' office.

"Are you going to be okay with this meeting?"

Santana nodded. "I have a plan."

"Okay. Just don't mention your previous fights. I know you got off scot free for them, but it's always better not to remind people about it."

"I know. I'm not stupid." Santana snapped.

"I know you're not. It was just some advice."

Will and Finn were already there and the meeting started. Shelby held a hand over her mouth as Santana started going on about her other personality. It was kind of funny, and if it hadn't been Finn that she had slapped, it probably would have gotten her out of trouble. But it was Finn, and it wasn't working.

Shelby was just a surprised as Santana when Finn claimed that the girl hadn't slapped him and that it had been a stage slap. They were all dismissed, and Santana left quickly, followed by Finn while Shelby and Will stayed in Figgins' office.

"That was weird." Shelby said after the door shut.

Figgins sighed. "It makes things easier for both of us. Don't dig too deeply into it Shelby."

Shelby nodded, and left the office unhappily. She just got the feeling something was wrong. She was proven right when an angry and confused Santana turned away from a retreating Finn to her.

"So, what? You planned this or something, and didn't tell me? What if I don't want it? What if I don't want to be part of that sorry excuse for a club again?"

Santana turned around and stormed off. Shelby had no idea what was going on, but if Will's annoying smirk as he exited Figgins' office was anything to go by, it was his fault. She was really starting to detest the man. She would _not_ play the villain in Santana's life. She had already screwed up with Rachel, she _wouldn't_ screw up with Santana.

Shelby Corcoran - 3

William Schuester – 2

Sue waited quietly until Will had walked down the hallway before approaching an enraged Shelby.

"I hope for your sake that what Frankenteen implied was a lie. I told you not to help if you were going to fail."

Shelby spun to face her. "What did he say?"

"He said that he only lied so that New Directions and the Troubletones could become one big happy family and sing their way to the other side of the rainbow together. And that both you and William had agreed it was a good idea."

"Fucker." Shelby ran a hand through her hair. "I can't believe Will would do something like that. He's a worse teacher than you!"

"Aww, come on now. No need to get nasty. I try hard to be horrible to my students."

Shelby ignored Sue's comment. "I have to find Santana."

"She has study hall now with Brittany."

Shelby nodded her thanks and headed to the study hall. She wasn't surprised that Sue had all her Cheerios' timetables memorized or at least her top Cheerio's.

Santana and Brittany were sitting at one of the tables at the back of the study hall. No one had joined them, or sat anywhere near them. Santana was very obviously angry, and glaring at anyone who came close. Shelby sat down at their table, opposite the two cheerleaders.

"Santana, what Finn told you was a lie. I would never force you to join New Directions against your will. If you think about it, it's actually a pretty stupid lie as I need the Troubletones for a job."

"Then how do you know what he said to me?"

"Sue was hanging around, and she told me. I wouldn't be surprised if that woman had all the hallways under video surveillance."

Santana turned to Brittany. The two looked at each other for a long moment before Santana sighed and looked back at Shelby.

"Okay. Brittany seems to believe you, so I'll, I dunno, forgive you or something."

Shelby smiled and held out her hand. "Give me your phone."

Santana was hesitant, but eventually handed her cell phone over, after much internal debate. Shelby flipped Santana's phone open and pushed a few buttons before handing it back.

"Here. If you ever need me, or just need help in general, you can call me. I know you don't like to ask for help Santana, and that's not always a bad thing. But sometimes you have no other choice but to ask, and if you ask me for help, I'll try my hardest. And Brittany, I fully expect you to do the same if you need to. I'm sure you can steal my number off Santana's phone."

/-/-/-/-/-/

**BlueStarProductions**,**val-cb**,**OTHangels**,**HappyHereford**, Anonyms – Thanks for reading, enjoying and reviewing.

**pleasegirldontyoudieonme** – I'm glad that you got the joke. :)

**Jamiemazing**** –** Thanks for the suggestion. I'm pretty sure that I want to bring Quinn in as a friend, cause Unholy Trinity is just awesome. So is Mercedes/Santana friendship.

Walsh – Well, you're right. IKAG was so fail. *pokes summery* This story is now 'officially' AU. Chapter four works on righting the wrongs of IKAG. I think you'll like it.

Mello1205 – Thanks. You just know that Shelby will win with Sue on her side. XD

**threeltlbirds**** – **I'm honoured you think something I wrote was perfect.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee. I would like to though.

**Interlude – Santana Leads by Many**

It was later the same day, and both New Directions and the Troubletones were in the choir room. There was a clear division of empty chairs between them, mostly enforced by Santana's glaring. Finn was at the front of the room, writing something about lady lovin' music, which Santana quietly laughed at. Finn didn't know a thing about ladies, let alone 'lady lovin''. Instead of just being left alone by the freaky giant like she had hoped (but hadn't really believed would happen), everyone's attention was turned towards Santana when Finn faces her to speak.

"Santana, we're worried about you."

"Worry about yourself, fetus face." She snapped back. It wasn't her best comeback, but hey, it was more of a reflex than something she actually put thought into.

Finn looked frustrated, and then he started talking about how much people sucked and how the only people that would care about Santana unconditionally were in this room. Which, was really, really stupid. Santana knew how much people sucked. She had seen what had happened to Kurt, and she had thrown enough slushies at the people around her just for being different.

Santana _knew_ that people sucked. She didn't need the green giant telling her and Santana definitely didn't need him telling her that people in the room cared about her, because it was easy to see that Brittany and the other Troubletones were in the room. She knew that she was mainly thinking about Brittany, but Mercedes had been there with comforting smiles and gentle encouragement, and even Sugar had been sweet. Slightly disturbing in her devotion, borderline obsession with Santana (the girl did everything Santana told her to do), but sweet. Then of course there was Shelby. Shelby, who just wanted to help, but if Santana wanted it. It was nice.

What wasn't nice was Finn telling her that everyone in glee was going to be singing her songs about, well, she wasn't actually sure what about. Santana had stopped listening as she normally did when Finn started talking. It was probably going to be about being a lesbian, or something, she guessed. Or maybe how to accept and love yourself. That sounded stupid enough hat Finn would suggest it. This was _not _something she wanted.

"And I don't get a say in this? Not cool."

Finn looked confused, like he expected Santana to fall at his feet praying to him. Actually, she wouldn't be surprised if that's what he did expect. But he didn't get it, so Finn let Kurt and Blaine take center stage. They sung 'Perfect' by Pink, and all Santana could think about was how she wanted to yell at them.

She wanted to yell that they weren't perfect. That no one but Brittany was perfect, so stop trying. She wanted to yell at them that she wasn't happy with this, and that she wanted them to stop throwing up rainbows on her.

Brittany entwined their fingers together, and Santana felt the anger and indignation that had been boiling up inside her fade away. Brittany wasn't dancing in her seat like she did for most glee songs. Instead Brittany was sitting quietly, looking at her girlfriend. Santana couldn't believe how much she loved Brittany some times, and now was one of those times.

The song finished, and Brittany gently extracted her hand from Santana's to politely clap. Santana just smiled. The smile itself was for Brittany, the hard words were for everyone in the room who was pressuring her into this.

"Thank you, guys. Thank you, Finn, especially. You know with all the horrible crap I've been through in my life, now I get to add that."

She clapped softly.

"You know, Santana, we're just trying to help. You could be nice."

"I'm trying!" She paused for a few seconds, because, if she was being honest, she was trying. She didn't always want to be a bitch. But when they did stuff like this, it was hard. "But your awful bowtie is distracting me. Besides, I don't want your help. It's not worth the annoying songs."

"Santana, we…"

She cut Finn off with a glare. "No, don't try to pretend like this isn't as offensive to me as what anyone else 'out there' might do or say. Tell me, Finn, why didn't you and the dwarf sing me a song?"

"Uh, I thought that Kurt and Blaine would be a better choice, cause they could relate to you better."

"Because they're gay? So much for treating me like just any other person. If you had actually thought about it, Finnocence, you'd have realized that you should be the one to sing to me. I mean, we've both had our lives turned upside down by someone telling a secret that wasn't theirs to tell. You found out that your girlfriend was pregnant with your best friends spawn, and you outed me to the whole of Ohio. And if that wasn't enough, you're now forcing me to be okay with myself through song. Because music makes everything better. You know what I would prefer? An apology, but I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon."

She turned to Kurt and Blaine. "And you two? I can't even tell you how disgusted I am at you. I get that you think coming out is an important part of the gay culture, and I'm probably not doing it fast enough for your liking. We all know that being out made both of your lives _so much better_. But I thought you would have at least respected the fact that it was my choice. But I guess not, because you're all forcing me out. Fuck you guys."

Santana felt Brittany's pinky curl around hers, and she let herself be pulled up and led away.

"We'll see you tomorrow. These group bonding sessions seem to be mandatory this week."

/-/-/-/-/

Shelby arrived at school at the same time as Santana and Brittany, which was rare. For once they didn't have a morning Cheerios practice. Shelby walked towards them and called out their names softly. Santana scowled slightly as she approached, and Brittany smiling brightly. Santana wasn't happy her Brittany time was being interrupted.

"Hi, Miss C."

Shelby smiled at Brittany. "Hi, Brittany. Santana. I wanted to talk to you about the Glee meetings between the Troubletones and New Directions."

"What about them?" Santana snapped.

"If you don't want to go to them anymore, you don't have to. I admit I had hoped that they could help to repair, or build the relationship between the Troubletones and the New Directions members. But Finn is just … well, he's a tool (Brittany giggled), and he's making everything harder. So if you don't want to do it anymore, we won't."

"We?"

"You've got all of the Troubletones behind you, Santana. So, yes, we."

Santana looked away. She didn't really want to go back and have Finn force her to come out of the closet. But on the other hand, she didn't want to back down, and she didn't want to sit on the sidelines during Sectionals. She could play nice for this week, and accommodate Finn. She was still going to point out how wrong he was though. That'd be fun.

"No, we'll keep going to these joint meetings. Then at Sectionals we'll beat them, because while they're spending all their time singing to me, we'll be practicing like normal."

Shelby smirked. "I don't think Will thought of that when he agreed to Finn's suggestion."

/-/-/-/-/

Santana sat silently as Puck sung. He was clearly not singing to her, and for that she was glad. Looking back, Puck had always been a mistake. Santana couldn't believe she had blown off Brittany for Puck even once. What had been wrong with her? She wrinkled her nose when Puck said that he'd been 'happy to oblige'. Seriously, what had been wrong with her? Still disgusted at herself, Santana and Brittany left and headed to their lockers. They were unfortunately ambushed by Kurt and Blaine once they got there.

"Gay One, Gay Two. To what do I owe the displeasure?"

They looked at each other, confused by the nicknames. Brittany giggled as she tucked her copy of 'The Cat in the Hat' deeper into her locker. Santana had read it to her the night before.

"We wanted to apologise, Santana."

Santana turned from her locker to look at Kurt. "Go on."

"You were right. We did treat you differently, and we're sorry for that. Finn made it sound like you were already out, and that you just needed the support."

Blaine smiled sadly. "We didn't even think you might not be. You have every right to hate us, but we're kind of hoping we can be friends."

Santana looked away from the hobbit. He really was short.

"Don't you think that had I been happily out that you would _know._ The whole school would know. But …we'll see about being friends." She didn't want to commit herself to them because when it came down to it, she had no reason to trust them, and she was more than willing to throw them under the metaphorical bus.

"Okay." Kurt looked slightly put out, but perked up again quickly. "Also, I thought you might want to know something. Finn didn't tell you, but the real reason he and Rachel didn't sing a duet was because Rachel refused to. I overheard them arguing about it at home. Apparently Rachel didn't approve of something because he didn't really understand what he was doing. I didn't hear the rest of the argument."

Santana snorted as she slammed her locker shut. "The man child _never_ understands _anything_. I'll see you around, Lady-face. Warbler."

She turned and left them by her locker as her and Brittany walked away. Brittany waved cheerfully over her shoulder at them.

/-/-/-/-/

Santana was tired, not that she'd let anyone but Brittany see that. The morning Cheerios practice had just ended, and Santana was pulling books out of her locker for homeroom and first period. Brittany was in Coach's office, going over a routine. Sue was smart, and she knew that Brittany was a resource that needed to be fully utilized.

Santana didn't want to look at Finn when he approached her, but she did. He started talking about how awesome she was (she knew) and how she was hiding her awesome (she so wasn't, she was just being selective of who saw it) and about how it made Finn a sad giant. Or something. Santana was easily and sarcastically rebuffing all of his comments in her head. Right until he said he was scared she'd commit suicide.

Santana's mind sort of froze. She was starting to believe she had misheard.

"What?"

"One of those kids who made those 'it gets better' videos killed himself last week."

She narrowed her eyes at Finn. He actually thought that _she_ would commit suicide. That she would leave Brittany alone. What was wrong with him? She was never one to give up. Even when she probably should.

"Thanks, but that's never going to happen. I'd miss me too much."

"Look, you were my first. That means something to me. You mean something to me. If something were to happen to you and I didn't do everything I could to help, I'd never live with myself."

Finn smiled lopsidedly at Santana before walking off. Santana just watched him.

"Motherfucker. How dare he?"

This was _not_ about him, but he was sure as hell trying to make it about him.

/-/-/-/-/

Santana had to admit that Finn sounded good. It was a good rendition of 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun'. Santana hated Finn all the more for it. She stood up when he finished, and Finn tried to hug her. She shoved him away gently.

Santana spoke slowly, sadly. She was fed up with everything. With the arguing, and with the anger.

"I'm sick of this, Finnocence. You're forcing me out and you don't even see what's wrong with that. In fact, you seem to think you're doing me a favor, but you're not. You're not helping me, you're helping yourself. You're making yourself feel better about a bad situation."

"You need help, Santana, but you're just too proud to ask for it."

"I might need help now that you've taken your oversized hands and played with my life like its play-doh. I didn't need help before. I was _fine_, I was doing _fine_. I was working on it, and I was happy with myself, and my relationship with Brittany. I didn't ask for help because I didn't need it. And then you come along, under the pretense of helping me and fuck me over. You outed me, and now I have to try and deal with things I didn't think I'd have to deal with for a few more months at least."

Finn ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "I didn't out you, Santana. That was Salazar."

"The sad thing is you actually believe that." Santana said with a bitter laugh. "You started it Finn. That was you. And now you're trying to force me to do something I don't want to."

"You need help, and I care about you. I want to help."

"I don't want your help!" Santana spat. "I didn't need it before, and I don't want it now. I've got other people helping me. People who actually care about me, rather than just saying they do."

"Like it or not Santana, you were my first. And that means I care about you."

Finn was starting to get angry, and Santana feared for the chairs in the room.

"Really Finn? Because you know what? I don't like it and I don't believe it. If I could go back in time, I would make sure I never slept with you. You don't care, and I've always known that."

"I do care!"

"So when I asked you how you felt after we fucked, why did you tell me, and I'm quoting this; 'I feel nothing. Because it meant _nothing_'."

Santana was trying hard not to cry. Not because she cared about Finn, but because she was exposing herself to a room full of people, most of which she still didn't really like. Santana refused to turn around and see their expressions, but she did hear a few shocked gasps and a quiet grunt of annoyance from Brittany. Santana had of course told Brittany all about her 'date' with Finn, and Brittany had never really forgiven him for being a jerk.

"I … I…"

"You what, Finn? You didn't mean it? Don't kid yourself. We both know that you did. It's one of the only truthful things I think I've heard you say. You don't care about me because you only care about your own guilt ridden conscience and living up to this ridiculous hero complex you've grown since Schuester started worshiping at the alter of the moronic giant who damages chairs."

She leaned forward so only Finn would hear. "I wouldn't be here if you weren't blackmailing me." She hissed.

As if sensing Santana was finished, Brittany wrapped her arms around Santana's waist in a quick hug before leading her girlfriend outside with a dirty look aimed towards Finn.

/-/-/-/-/

Santana had picked tonight to come out to her parents. Not because Finn had helped her to embrace her inner gay or anything. Tonight just happened to be the first night her parents had both had off since she had first found out about the commercial, and it aired tomorrow. She could have waited. It wasn't like her parents actually watched TV, even when they weren't working. But they were relatively well known figures in the community, and it wouldn't be long before someone said something. Fucking gossips.

Santana made dinner, her parent's favourites so it would be ready shortly after they got home. Despite what everyone seemed to think of her, Santana could be considerate. But only to certain people, like her parents, and Brittany. Sometimes Quinn, if they were in one of their 'friends' periods.

Dinner was a quiet affair, and Santana was still trying to find a way to bring up her sexuality. She was so immersed in her thoughts that she didn't hear her mother ask a question.

"Santana?"

Santana looked up at her parents and said the first thing that came into her mind.

"I like sex with girls."

Oh, god. What had she done?

Dr Lopez looked at his wife quickly before turning back to Santana.

"We know. You and Brittany aren't exactly subtle. We've caught you compromising positions more than once. Of course, now that we officially know, I'm going to have to insist on an open door policy."

Santana's jaw dropped. She didn't know what surprised her more. That her parents already knew she was gay, or that her father had actually just insisted on the open door policy.

"We understand of course," Mrs. Lopez started "that we won't always been at home to enforce the policy, but when we are, we expect you to follow it to the letter."

"Well, fuck."

"Language, _mija_." Her father said quickly. "Also, this lasagna is delicious."

/-/-/-/-/

It was Election Day, and Santana would be lying if she said she wasn't nervous. She knew that Brittany would win, so Santana didn't really know why she was nervous. But she was. Suddenly, as Brittany stood next to her, their pinkys linked as JewFro asked questions, Santana wasn't nervous anymore. Because Brittany was going to win. Not only win, but she was going to win with almost no help from anyone. Sure Santana had given her opinion when asked, had helped put up posters, and had listened while Brittany practiced her candidate speech. But all the things that mattered, all the decisions? That was Brittany, 100% Brittany. Which was why Brittany would win. Everyone loved Brittany being Brittany, and no one wanted to see her sad.

The whole campaign had been genius. Her campaign posters had been similar to Kurt's, though they featured care bears and ducks rather than unicorns. It could have screwed Brittany over. Either being seen as a copy cat, or being seen as in league with Kurt. But according to one of Jacob's polls, most people thought that Kurt had copied Brittany's idea. Despite the fact that Brittany's posters were put up days after Kurt's. Then there had been the bribing with Pixie Sticks, which had been a carefully executed affair. Pixie Sticks were Figgins' favourite candy, and a whole case had made its way to his office before homeroom.

Santana pressed her lips to Brittany's cheek because she loved her soon to be senior class president girlfriend. It was that simple.

/-/-/-/-/

Santana truly appreciated all the glee girls standing up to Josh Coleman for her; not that she couldn't have done it herself, but it was hilarious (Well, most of it was funny. Rachel implying that they were all lesbians wasn't so much, because it made Santana think of her sexually which was a whole new level of gross). It kind of made her love Brittany and Mercedes more. Sugar too, but Santana would never admit that. The girl had an ego bigger than Rachel's and it took weeks of forced interaction to even remotely start to like her.

They decided to sing 'I Kissed a Girl', which was (obviously) a success. Even though Santana didn't really agree with the message it sent (which wasn't as obvious, and Santana knew that none of the girls had picked the song with malicious intentions. Finn choice to sing 'Girl Just Wanna Have Fun' was probably also unintentional, but forgive her for not caring about that all too much), she did enjoy singing it and she was thankful that all the girls we willing to sing it with her.

So Santana had made a split second decision to tell glee club how it had gone with her parents the night before. She didn't tell them because she forgave them, but rather because the people who did care about here where there, and they deserved to know.

Brittany already knew of course. She had been hidden in Santana's room during dinner for support, and possibly to intervene if she heard yelling. Santana had been against the idea not wanting to put her in danger, but Brittany had insisted.

Santana turned to Shelby as she took her seat and mouthed 'Thank you'. Shelby just smiled back brightly and gave a dorky double thumbs up.

/-/-/-/-/

Santana's _abuela_ walked away, deeper into her house as if she was trying to escape from the words Santana had just said. Santana felt everything shatter around her. She was no longer in the kitchen of the woman who had practically raised her. She was in the kitchen of a woman who was disgusted and thought of her as a sinner.

Santana stood up and stumbled to where her car was parked outside. She got in and managed to drive a block before she was forced to pull over because she couldn't see through her tears. Santana reached for her phone. She had no idea who to call but she needed to call someone. Brittany needed to be told in person, she had always thought of Santana's _abuela_ as family. Quinn was too wrapped up in her crazy to really pay attention to anyone else. Santana couldn't bring herself to call Mercedes or Sugar crying. She liked them, but she didn't really trust them enough for that. It left one person.

/-/-/-/-/

As Puck's strong arms surrounded her in a hug, Shelby felt her cell phone vibrate in her pocket. She snaked her hand down and looked at the screen.

_Unknown Number_

She considered ignoring it, but years of auditions and call backs had taught Shelby to always take calls. It was a hard habit to break.

"Hello. Shelby Corcoran speaking."

For a few seconds all Shelby could hear was sobbing. Then a soft voice spoke.

"She hates me."

Shelby pushed Puck away and walked towards the lobby for privacy. She waved for Puck to stay where he was when he started to follow.

"Santana? Honey, what's wrong?"

"I told her, and she hates me."

Shelby frowned. Santana sounded like a mess.

"Where are you?"

Santana told her.

"Okay, I'll be there as soon as I can. Wait for me. If you feel like leaving, call me first, okay?"

Santana grumbled something that sounded like a 'yes' before hanging up abruptly. Shelby sighed heavily. Santana was probably more hurt that she had been in her life, obviously crying her eyes out, and she still managed to be bitchy and moody.

Luckily the plastic surgeon that Puck insisted on had been available, and Beth had been stitched up while Shelby took the phone call. Beth smiled as the doctor handed her to Shelby.

"Hey, Sweetie. How are you? Feeling better? Mummy was worried."

Puck reached forward and ran a hand through Beth's hair. He tried to pull both Shelby and Beth into a hug but was pushed away.

"Puck, I need to make something clear to you. That hug before? That was a friendly hug. One that I needed because I was distraught. It meant nothing sexual, and certainly did not mean that I love you. I can be your friend, Puck, but nothing more than that."

Puck looked heart broken and angry. Shelby knew it was her fault. She had let him kiss her, and really, she should have stopped this a long time ago. She spoke quickly, before Puck could come up with some sort of answer.

"I have to go. I have things to do. Thank you for coming, Puck. I guess I'll see you at school tomorrow."

Shelby left Puck behind as she buckled Beth into her car seat. Sure he was hurt, but Santana needed her, and Puck would survive. He was a big boy, and a big player. Shelby knew that, and she knew that he could and would move on from her quickly and (at least Shelby hoped, for his sake) easily.

It was only a short drive to the address that Santana had given her, and Shelby recognized Santana's obnoxiously bright red car straight away. Shelby unbuckled Beth and walked to Santana's car, tapping on the driver's side window. The window lowered, and a tear stained Santana looked at her.

"Hey."

Santana looked away and sighed deeply.

"I didn't think you'd come."

"I said I would."

"Yeah, I guess so." Santana looked at her again before glancing at Beth. "What's the munchkin doing here?"

"We were at the hospital when you called. Beth was hurt."

Santana's eyes traced the stitches of Beth's face, but she didn't say anything.

"You shouldn't have come then."

"She'll be fine, and so will you. Let's get you home. I have something I want to discuss with you and your parents."

"You'll be lucky if they're home."

Shelby knew that. You picked up things from students when you spent a lot of time around them. But she was never one to rely on luck by itself. She may or may not have called Dr and Mrs Lopez at their respective works and asked to meet with them after Santana informed glee club of her coming out. She had planned to talk to them tonight until Beth had pushed everything else to the back of her mind.

"I have a good feeling they'll be there. Can you drive, or should I drive you? Either way I'll need directions."

/-/-/-/-/

After Shelby had finished talking to her parents, Santana had asked for her to help with the song she'd be singing at glee the next day, 'Constant Craving'. Shelby was more than happy to help and they moved to the living room where the piano was. Shelby played while Santana sang. Just as Shelby was leaving, she said something Santana never thought she'd hear from her.

"I understand that Finn has given you the ultimatum of re-joining New Directions, or not competing at Sectionals due to being suspended for slapping him. But you have to remember that blackmail is a two way street, and there's always something worse out there. I'm not encouraging you blackmail anybody, as no teacher should do that. I'm just reminding you of the nature of blackmail. Call it an after class lesson."

At Santana questioning look, Shelby continued.

"Sue's quite nice when you don't get in her way. I'll see you tomorrow, Santana."

Later that night Santana found herself searching through her laptop for a video she had taken last year and saved in a folder called 'Wanky stuff that still makes me laugh'. Once she found it, she texted Finn, telling him to meet her in the choir room before glee club started.

/-/-/-/-/

Santana was waiting on Finn, which wasn't really a surprise. She entertained herself by moving from chair to chair and drawing a small man wearing a sombrero on each one. Finn finally turned up, and glared at Santana.

"Santana."

"Finnocence."

"Can you stop with the name calling? It's childish."

"I enjoy it, so no. That's not what I want to talk about anyway. Now let'sd get down to business. You're blackmailing me to re-join New Directions."

She said firmly.

Finn flushed. "I wouldn't call it blackmail."

"I wouldn't call you a man, but everyone else seems to think you are. Just like if everyone else knew what you were doing, _they'd_ call it blackmail. But, regardless of what you want to call it, I have something to say."

"What?"

Santana stood up from where she was sitting and took a few steps towards Finn.

"You're never gonna tell Figgins that I slapped you. You're going to keep up that little 'stage slap' lie. Because if you don't, I'm going to make sure the whole school sees a video I have of Mr. Schuester and Miss Pillsbury getting it on during school hours. And if that doesn't get at least one of them fired for inappropriate behaviour, I'm sure Coach will have something else I could use. I bet it would be Schuester's ass that gets kicked out. It really looks like he's taking advantage of Miss P, and she _was_ dating the dentist at the time."

She grinned evilly at him. "You're not going to get very far without teacher supervision. New Directions struggles with it."

"Santana, you can't just…"

"I can and I did. You did after all. Now I suggest you sit down and wait for glee club to start like a good little boy. People will be here soon."

Almost as if it had been timed, Brittany, Sugar and Mercedes walked into the choir room. Brittany ran up to Santana and hugged her as the other two sat down.

"Hey."

Santana smiled up at her.

"Hey. I'm gonna sing for you today."

"I like it when you sing for me."

"I know. I should do it more often."

"Yeah, you should."

Santana and Shelby's 'Constant Craving'cover was amazing, if she did say so herself. If Brittany's tight hug and gently murmured compliments were anything to go by, she agreed.

Rachel ruined the moment by barging into the choir room with tears streaming down her cheeks and the annopucement that she suspended for a week and banned from competing in Sectionals. Brittany frowned at Rachel.

"It serves you right." She said simply.

"I…I just wanted to help Kurt."

"You cheated stupidly. If you had really wanted to help Kurt, you'd have only put in thirty two extra votes for him. That's how many people didn't vote. But you were stupid and added lots."

"I know I didn't really think it through, but I don't think …"

"You didn't think about anyone else. You didn't think that maybe someone else deserved to win too. I get that you were trying to help Kurt, but at the same time, you hurt everyone else campaigning, and that's not nice."

Rachel stood up slightly taller. In hindsight, she realized that it wasn't the smartest thing to do, stuffing the ballot boxes, but she did it for the right reason.

"Kurt needed senior class president on his application for NYADA. I was simply trying to …"

Brittany cut her off again. "I only went for class president because Kurt didn't feel like a unicorn. We needed a unicorn as class president, because only a unicorn would be able to help Santana when she came out. I knew she'd do it sometime this year, and I figured that if I was the president, then no one could be mean to her cause she's like, the First Lady, and I'm pretty sure it's illegal to be mean to the First Lady."

Santana hugged Brittany tighter. God she loved her.

/-/-/-/-/

**LuvtheJEm**,**conventgirlvampire:**I hope you both saw the beginnings of Pezberry friendship, but it'll be a while before it blooms. After all, Brittany does seem to hate Rachel, and Santana's far to whipped to do something that Brittany didn't like.

**RPX,readerchik,PhasesOfObsession,MKAmericanhero:** Yay! We're all one big happy family who dislikes the way Glee works when it comes to Santana. When you feel sad at the way she's treated, just remember, you're not alone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Glee. Darn…

**Interlude – Santana Leads by Many (Part Two)**

The Troubletones had decided on two out of three of their songs for Sectionals. The Adele mash up of 'Rumour Has It/Someone Like You' hadn't even needed to be voted on, every had agreed it was one of their best performances. Shelby had been struck by inspiration weeks ago and had mashed together Gloria Gaynor's 'I Will Survive' and Destiny's Child's 'Survivor' and everyone had agreed it was good enough to compete with. If they weren't practicing, they were flicking through their iPods, looking for inspiration. Santana paused at 'K'. She considered the song for a second before pushing a headphone into one ear and listening to it. It could work.

"Shelby?"

Shelby looked up from where she was talking to Sugar and held up a hand to indicate that she would be with Santana in a few minutes. Santana nodded and listened to the song again. Shelby had decided to let the Troubletones call her by her given name rather than calling her Miss Corcoran early on into the formation of the group when the only Cheerios had been Brittany and Santana. At that time she hadn't actually been a teacher at McKinley, only a vocal coach, and none of the other staff had really expected her to follow the rules like they did. It was a stupid view to take, but a lot of things in McKinley didn't make sense. Santana, Brittany and the rest of the Cheerios still occasionally called her 'Miss C', and Shelby kind of liked it. It was something so obviously part of the Cheerios lifestyle, and it made her feel like she was a small part of something. She wouldn't say that out loud of course. It made her sound like a teenage girl, and right now, she had more than enough of those in her life.

Sugar was a handful at the best of times. Though she had calmed down dramatically since Santana, and Brittany had joined the Troubletones, and had actually stopped insisting that she was the best singer in the world. She had actually started to listen to Shelby during their singing lessons, and there was a definite improvement in her vocal skills. Not that Sugar would be singing any solos at a competition any time soon, but she was better. Santana was mostly responsible for that. For the first time in Sugar's life, someone didn't back down because her father was rich. Even Mercedes had put up with Sugar to begin with, after all she was the whole reason that the Troubletones existed. But Santana's parents were pretty well off too, and she wasn't going to put up with Sugar. It soon became clear that Sugar held a bit of hero worship for Santana. She did pretty much everything Santana asked of her, and Shelby thought that Sugar was lucky that Santana had reached a point in her life where she wasn't going to abuse that. Shelby had heard the stories about Santana's behaviour from a few years ago. The staff loved to gossip, and relive 'horror' tales, most of which involved a combination of Quinn, Santana, Brittany and Puck. Still, Shelby took all the stories with a grain of salt, but it wasn't hard to believe that Santana had been a meaner person just a few short years ago.

Then there was Rachel. Shelby knew that Rachel felt like she had abandoned her for Beth, and she guessed that Rachel was at least partly right. But she did want to get to know Rachel, and not just because she was an amazing woman (Shelby was pretty sure she'd think that of Rachel no matter what she was like), but because Rachel was her daughter and adopting Beth had only made Shelby realize even more that she wanted to know Rachel. She was hopeful that they could at least be friends. Rachel had let her write her NYADA reference on her own, after all. That was a beginning.

Adopting Beth didn't just affect Rachel though, it also affected Quinn. Shelby wanted nothing more than to help Quinn. She had been in a similar situation herself with Rachel, and Shelby wouldn't wish that on anyone. But when it came down to it, she was Beth's mother and Shelby wasn't going to let Quinn ruin that. She did empathize with Quinn, but she was being an evil little bitch. Shelby wouldn't have even cared if Quinn had just been attacking her, but she wasn't. She was attacking Beth too, and that was a step too far (yes, she did realize the hypocrisy of the situation, and Shelby had seriously considered sending apology flowers to the Berry men on multiple occasions).

Shelby finished her conversation with Sugar on how they chose the judges for Sectionals (Sugar was trying to get her father to be a judge) and headed over to Santana. Santana. Shelby really just wanted to wrap her up in cotton and hide her away from the world until everything was back to normal. But she couldn't, so Shelby would just try to help the best she could.

Strangely, Brittany wasn't sitting next to Santana. The two had been pretty much inseparable over the past few weeks. Instead, she was across the room, searching through Mercedes' iPod with her. Brittany still flicked her eyes up to Santana every few minutes and Santana did the same to Brittany. It was sweet.

Santana glanced up at Shelby as she walked towards her.

"You needed something, Santana?"

Santana nodded. "Yeah, I found a song we could use."

"What is it?" Shelby sat in the seat next to Santana and peered at the girl's iPod.

Santana gave a headphone to Shelby. "'Karma' by Alicia Keys."

Shelby listened to the song. It wasn't the most amazing song in the world, but it was good, and there was plenty of potential for backup singers.

"Why this song?"

"I think we need a song that doesn't just focus on Mercedes and me." Santana explained.

"My mother's a PR consultant, and well, I asked for her advice. She said that it makes it look like Mercedes and I are the only one who can sing. We need to showcase someone else's singing and I think we need to show we're also awesome dancers." Santana shrugged. "Maybe we need to change the choreography for the 'I Will Survive/Survivor' mash up. Make it more, I don't know, athletic? I know that you understand show choir better than anyone here, but you're not use to the Cheerios and we're made up of mostly Cheerios. Some of the stuff Coach Sylvester has us doing make our dance moves look like a basic two-step in comparison. It looks like anyone could do it, but we're not just anyone, we're the Troubletones. Don't get me wrong, I like parts of it." Santana blushed slightly. "Like, I like dancing with Brittany, but parts of it could be revamped."

Shelby nodded at Santana and smiled. "I think you're probably right. Who would you pick to sing 'Karma'?"

"Brittany, with Mercedes and everyone else doing back up. Britt can't hit some of those higher notes, but Mercedes can. Mercedes isn't a bad dancer exactly, but she's not a Cheerio, and if she's singing, we can do more complicated dance moves that she can't."

Shelby nodded again. "Okay. We'll bring it up tomorrow, when we discuss our ideas from today. It's a good idea Santana."

/-/-/-/-/

Santana's idea went over well with the Troubletones. Brittany was excited about taking the lead. She had wanted to sing at a competition since she sung 'Tik Tok' at the school assembly (though she didn't want to throw up this time). The other Cheerios were glad to be doing more complicated dances moves that Coach would approve of. Sugar was glad to be complimented on her dancing from Santana and Shelby, and Mercedes was happy that even if she wasn't exactly singing a duet with Brittany that she would still be the main singer. After all, she was singing two other duets.

The Troubletones worked on the new choreography for 'I Will Survive/Survivor' while Shelby worked with the band on 'Karma'. Once she had the instrumental, Shelby would start working with Brittany and Mercedes before adding the backup singers to the mix. Santana grinned at the thought. They could do this. They could win Sectionals.

/-/-/-/-/

Santana settled on to her bed, pulling Brittany with her until they were both tangled together.

"Are you excited about Sectionals?"

Brittany grinned shyly. "Yeah, I've always wanted to sing at a competition."

"I know."

Brittany snuggled closer into Santana.

"You're awesome, did you know that?"

Santana pressed her lips to Brittany's forehead. "I know."

Brittany giggled and gently swatted Santana's stomach.

"Hey! What did you expect me to say? I really am awesome."

They were giggling and rolling around on Santana's bed when her bedroom door opened, and Mrs. Lopez peered inside. She let out a sigh of relief.

"At least you're clothed."

"Mama! Shouldn't you be at work?" Santana sat up quickly, pulling out of Brittany's embrace. Brittany knew she wasn't scared of being caught (at least not while they weren't having sex), so she sat up and wrapped her arms around Santana's waist. She wanted to snuggle, and Mrs. Lopez would not stop her.

Mrs. Lopez sighed dramatically. "If you had only listened this morning you would know that I took the afternoon off to confer with our lawyer. But of course, no one in this family ever listens to me. I might as well be mute for all the good it does me."

Brittany giggled at the display. Mrs. Lopez was a more mature version of Santana. They had the same body shape and size (Santana certainly hadn't gotten her father's height) and the same type of hair, though completely different haircuts. Mrs. Lopez had her hair cut short and curled. They looked different, because Mrs. Lopez had a good thirty years on Santana, and Santana had a lot of her father's facial features, but they were definitely related, and a lot of the time they acted the same. Santana always said she couldn't see the similarities, but Brittany could. She smiled at Mrs. Lopez.

"I listen to you."

Mrs. Lopez smiled down at Brittany. "That's why you're my favourite, Brittany. Santana and her father? They're useless, but you're a good girl."

Santana rolled her eyes as Brittany grinned in pride at being the favourite.

"And the lawyer said?"

Mrs. Lopez frowned.

"He said that we have grounds to sue Salazar. Firstly for publicizing your private affairs and secondly for violation of personality rights. That means your right to control how your name and image is used in public. It's up to you, of course, but I want you to think about it first. While we can sue him, it doesn't mean we have to, nor does it mean we would win if we did. This is Lima after all."

Santana lay back down, pulling Brittany with her and frowned at the ceiling for a bit. She knew exactly what her mother meant. _This is Lima._ You weren't meant to be different in Lima.

"I'll think about it."

Mrs. Lopez nodded. "Sure. Also, I'm making pizza for dinner, what do you want on it?"

"Oh! Pepperoni and sprinkles!"

Santana wrinkled her nose but nodded in agreement. "Uh, yeah, that."

Mrs. Lopez just laughed and left them alone.

"Sanny, who's Salsa? Isn't he from Harry Potter?"

"It's Salazar, babe, and he has the same name as the guy in Harry Potter, but he's not him. Like you have the same name as Brittney Spears, but you're not her."

"That's because I'm a better singer and dancer than Brittney Spears."

"Yeah, you are. Well Salazar is the one who outed me in that ad for congress."

Brittany frowned. "I thought that was 'the sauce'."

"'The Sauce' is a nickname. His real name is Reggie Salazar."

"Oh. So what about him?"

"Well, what he did in his campaign was illegal. He told everyone I was a lesbian, even though there was no public interest in it. I mean, other people in Ohio had no need to know. And like mama said, I have the right to say how my name and image is used. But Salazar didn't ask for permission to use a picture of me, so it was illegal."

"Well, yeah." Brittany scoffed. "He hurt the First Lady. Of course it's illegal."

"We're considering suing him for it. Shelby called a friend in New York and told him of the situation. She suggested that it might be an appropriate action to take. Her friend that he thought we'd have grounds, but to talk to our lawyer first. But I dunno. It could just drag the whole thing out. The case might not even be decided by the time we graduate. I don't want to stay in Lima any longer than I have to."

Brittany shrugged. "I'm sure you'll make the right decision."

**Lydrin** - Don't worry, IKAG made me rant too.

A.C – I'm doing exactly the same thing. If I didn't have fanfic, I don't think I'd be able to watch Glee.

**dmpanda5** – Making Finn look bad was actually really easy. Cause he's a dick.

**EvenInTheDark****, ****PezBerryRocks121**, Mello1205 – It's nice to know you think I did justice with the IKAG episode.

Charlotte, **OTHangels****, ****dancelikeheya****, ****Demon ninja of the leaf****, ****Ondjage****, ****missingviolet** – Thanks for reviewing. I hope you enjoy this update too, and I'm really sorry for the long wait, but it's that time of year when I should have heaps of time, but don't.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Glee, anything associated with Glee or any of the songs mentioned. Darn…

**Chapter Four**

By the time Sectionals arrived, the auditorium at McKinley had been completely redecorated and looked both sophisticated and professional. Shelby would have been more impressed with the effort, if she hadn't worked at in a much better environment at pretty much every other school she had taught at. McKinley was definitely toward the poorer end of the scale when it came to schooling. She was almost surprised that the whole auditorium was filled, William had always made it seem like no one cared about the arts in a hundred mile radius of McKinley. Shelby figured that Will at least had some reason to believe that considering who the judges were. A DMV employee of the month, a judge from the Court of Appeals and Western Ohio's Birthday Clown of the Year for three years running. Shelby had never seen such a pitiful display. It was painful to look at. Particularly the clown, she had this thing about clowns the stemmed from a bad night out during her later college years. Much to Shelby's horror, the clown stood up and squeaked his nose. She was just glad that she was at the back and could easily keep an eye on him.

"Welcome everyone, to Sectionals for the amateur show choir competition. The winner here will go on to Regionals to compete for the right to try at Nationals. Firstly, I'd like to say a big thanks to William McKinley's own New Directions for helping to decorate this venue for us."

Shelby could see the small smirk curve on Will's lips. He nodded to the clown, and the clown nodded back. That dirty little bastard had an in with the judges!

Shelby Corcoran - 3

William Schuester – 3

Shelby felt someone sit in the seat next to her.

"Without further ado, let's welcome the Unitards to perform!"

The crowd politely clapped and the Unitards appeared on stage and prepared for their first song.

Shelby managed not to jump as "They suck." was spoken loudly in her ear. She was glad, because Shelby had a sneaking suspension that Sue would have mocked her ferociously if she had been startled. A few parents turned around and shushed Sue, but she ignored them.

"You know what's interesting about William? Against the odds, he seems to win a lot. Because he has this belief that his stupid little club is good enough to do it. I even leaked the set list to his competitors at his first … singing thing, and he still won with songs prepared half an hour before they went on stage. I could almost respect it if it didn't make me want to vomit up a mixture of protein shakes and carrot. But somehow, he still managed to lose to that waste of skin Gooslby when it really counted. Now that it really counts, he doesn't think that he's got what it takes. Otherwise he'd give an embarrassingly bad pep talk and send the little freaks out on stage with a sense of false accomplishment. You know why he's scared? Because my Cheerios always win at competitions."

Sue sniffed loudly and looked around the auditorium. "This place reeks of suckfulness."

She stood up and stormed out. Shelby shook her head, a small smile on her lips. When she wasn't antagonising _you_, Sue was ridiculously hilarious. At least the Troubletones had Sue's vote of confidence. Shelby turned back to the stage in time to watch the Unitards' third song.

They were good. Not good enough to win, but for a new group, they were good. If Shelby were still the coach of Vocal Adrenaline, chances were she would have tried to snipe their lead singer. Most people couldn't resist a full scholarship to Carmel with what was almost a guaranteed win at Nationals.

The Troubletones were next, and Shelby couldn't have been prouder. They performed perfectly and 'Rumour Has It/Someone Like You' received a standing ovation (led, Shelby had noticed, by an older Latino couple and a tall blonde couple).

Then it was New Directions' turn to perform. Santana had told her about Sam coming back. He was a good singer, but he wasn't in the same league as Rachel, and couldn't fix the fact that New Directions had lost their lead singer. Not many people would be able to. Shelby had been at Nationals last year; there was no way she wasn't going to be there when it was in the same city she lived in. Shelby had even made sure to get a copy of the filmed performances from the organizers so that when Beth eventually started asking questions about her birth mother, Shelby wanted to be able to pull out the DVD and point to Quinn and tell Beth that her birth mother was a great singer. More than that, Shelby wanted Quinn to be a part of Beth's life, but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Not with the way Quinn was acting.

New Directions preformed a mixture of Jackson music. It was a good move. Ever since Michael Jackson's death, anything from the Jackson's had become popular. They started with 'ABC' by the Jackson Five followed by Quinn leading the rest of the choir into 'Control' by Janet Jackson. They ended with 'Man in the Mirror', a Michael Jackson song sung mostly by the boys. Something about the performances was off and it took Shelby a few minutes to realize it was the lack of female singers. You could have a group of all boys, or all girls, and it sounded and looked fine. But when you had a mixed group with that large a gender difference, it just looked off. And Shelby was the indirect reason for that. Opps.

Sure it was Will's fault for driving away Sugar, and it was his fault for not respecting the singers he had. That both Mercedes and Santana felt under appreciated should have told him something. Unfortunately for him he didn't get the message and he lost two of his best female singers and his best dancer. Not that he saw it that way of course. Shelby knew that from day one that Will had dubbed her the enemy, and everything bad that happened to him was going to be her fault.

All three show choirs were welcomed back on stage after a break in which the judges deliberated and came to a decision. The clown got on stage and started to present awards.

"And in third place, we have the Unitards."

The female lead skipped forward far too happily considering that her team had essentially just lost. As she moved back, she said something to Kurt that turned the boy's face into an amusing combination of amazement and horror.

Shelby's heart started beating faster. This was it. William was staring at the clown, his hands clasped in front of his mouth. Emma sat next to him, one hand on his shoulder. Despite his staring, the clown hadn't looked back at Will.

"And in second place," The clown took a step forward. "we have McKinley's own" Another step. "New Directions. Which means our winners are the Troubletones!"

Shelby collapsed in her seat as the Troubletones jumped forward, grabbing their trophy and hugging each other.

Take that Will Schuester. Take that.

Shelby Corcoran - 4

William Schuester – 3

**Author's Note 2:** Question for the readers. Who, if anyone, do you want to join the Troubletones? Who do you definitely not want to join them?

**chicavolcom89**, **OTHangels** and **dmpanda5**: I'm glad you're enjoying the story. I hope this chapter was to your liking. :)

Walsh: I think I love you. Just saying. Thanks for commenting on what I'm pretty sure is every chapter. :D


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: **I still do not own Glee Chances are, if you're reading this story and agreeing with everything, you probably wish I did. But I don't. Darn…

**Author's Note:** Yeah, sorry it took so long. I'm back at uni now so I have no idea when updates will be.

**Author's Note 2:** If you're confused about Rachel's actions in this chapter, please re-read chapter four. I have hints in there that show what she's feeling. It's not just random, I swear!

xxxxx

The Troubletones sat in a circle in the classroom they practiced in. It was their first meeting after Sectionals.

"I can't tell you girls how proud I am of you."

Santana smirked. "You could try."

"I could, but I won't. I don't want your head to get any bigger than it already is."

Santana scoffed and rolled her eyes and the other girls laughed. In the end, she still had a small grin on her face.

"Anyway, we have two and a half weeks until the Christmas break starts and we need to decide what we're going to do."

Mercedes frowned. "Do? To what?"

"We can always use more singers, and New Directions are no longer part of the competition."

"No way!" Santana shook her head.

Mercedes shook a finger at Shelby. "I agree with Santana. We left to get away from all the stuff that was holding us back. And like it or not, a lot of that was New Directions. I am not going to start singing in the back ground again."

"Not now that we've proved we're better off without them." Brittany grabbed Santana's hand in an effort to calm her girlfriend down (Shelby had been informed by Sugar that they were _officially_ dating now).

Shelby waited until it was quiet again.

"So, you're saying there's not one person in the whole of New Directions you wouldn't want to perform with again? I'm not suggesting we adopt everyone. I was thinking more along the lines of auditions, in which everyone in the Troubletones has a say in who will be offered a place with us. Is that acceptable?"

The Troubletones looked around the room at each other before they all started slowly nodding.

"Good."

/-/-/-/-/

Shelby knew the best way to make sure all of New Directions knew there would be audition for the Troubletones was to tell them during glee practice. But William would hate it. Although he probably deserved to have his face shoved in his loss at Sectionals, Shelby wasn't stupid enough to go out of her way to raise Will's ire. That would only lead to trouble. She even went to the pains of making sure the auditions wouldn't be held on a day that New Directions met up. Anyway, Shelby was pretty sure Sue would murder her if she took away the cheerleading coach's main form of entertainment. Instead, Shelby posted a notice and sign up sheet on all of the notice boards.

Shelby looked up when she heard a knock on her office door.

"Come in."

"Hi, Shelby." Sugar said with a happy smile as she entered and dropped into the chair on the other side of the desk from Shelby.

"Daddy's happy that we won Sectionals. He's going to talk to Principal Figgins about getting us a bigger budget. Isn't that cool? Rhetorical question, you can thank me now."

Shelby still wasn't quite sure if Santana was having a positive or a negative effect on Sugar. The younger girl had certainly picked up a few of the Latina's traits.

"Thank you, Sugar. We couldn't have done it without you."

Which was true. Sugar had come up with a lot of ideas for their Sectionals performance. She wasn't as good a dancer as Brittany was, but she was good and had a real flair for costumes.

"You're welcome. Also, I saw Mr. Schue pull down the Troubletones audition sheets and throw them away."

Shelby frowned. That was really childish.

"So," Sugar continued. "I picked then out of the rubbish bin."

Sugar handed over five very crumpled (but thankfully not smelly or dirty) sheets of paper.

That's when Shelby saw what had obviously made Will angry enough to rip down the audition sheets. Three names.

_Quinn Fabray_

_Tina Choen-Chang_

_Mike Chang_

"Thank you Sugar. That's very resourceful."

"I know."

/-/-/-/-/

It was two days later, directly after New Direction's practice that Shelby was once again interrupted in her office. This time by Tina and Mike.

She motioned for the two teenagers to come in.

"Please, take a seat."

They sat down awkwardly, not meeting her eyes.

"So, what brings you two here?"

Mike glanced at Tina for a second before speaking.

"We've decided not to audition for the Troubletones. We thought you should know before the auditions."

Shelby just stared at them for a few seconds before sighing deeply and rubbing a had over her face.

"May I ask why you've decided this?"

"We want to remain with our friends." Tina said, still not looking at Shelby.

"And why did you decide to audition in the first place?"

Mike opened his mouth and shut it again before looking at Tina.

"Look, Tina, Mike. You don't have to tell me. Just think about it. Mike, I believe you've applied to several schools for dance?"

Mike nodded and glanced fondly at Tina. "Yeah."

"Okay. Well, I understand the pressure you're under to prove to those schools tat you're better than everyone else out there. And I understand that losing at Sectionals was probably hard for you, knowing you wouldn't get a chance at Nationals. I've been in similar situations before, and I can tell you now, it's not an easy path. But I think you'll make it. You're that good."

Shelby chuckled at the confused looks she was getting at her little speech.

"The point I want to make is that you can't let other people decide what you do. Because you'll never get anywhere that way. I'm not going to tell you that you should audition, though I believe my point of view on the subject should be pretty obvious. I just want you to think of why you've made this decision not to audition, and I want you to ask yourself if it's worth it. If you change your mind, you know where my office is. Okay?"

She smiled at them, and they smiled back.

"Thank you for being understanding, Miss Corcoran."

"You're welcome Mike, Tina. Have a good day."

'Remain with their friends.' No, Shelby didn't think so. Translation: Mr. Schuester guilt tripped us into not joining. She couldn't believe that he was threatening his student's future to keep a high school club together. Actually, she could believe that. What was wrong with the man?

Shelby Corcoran - 4

William Schuester – 3

/-/-/-/-/

Another two days later, and three days before auditions, Quinn was still the only person signed up for auditions. Figgins hadn't been particularly receptive to the idea of the Troubletones holding auditions in the first place (he had muttered something about not rocking the boat), and hadn't let Shelby move the date to later back.

Shelby was entering the staff room just as Will was leaving. His head was turned as he said good bye to someone, and he didn't see her enter the room. Shelby went about her morning school routine of coffee making. She was stirring the sugar into her coffee when strong arms wrapped around her waist in a hug. If she didn't know better, Shelby would have sworn it was Brittany. It was such a Brittany thing to do.

"Honey, I'm home."

Shelby turned her head and was met with a wave of blonde hair.

"Holly, what are you doing here?"

Holly jumped back, allowing Shelby to turn around.

"You're not happy to see me?"

Shelby took a slow sip of her coffee. "Last I heard, you were on the other side of Ohio teaching sex ed at a private Christian school."

Holly grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, that didn't work out too well. What about you? I thought you were in New York."

Shelby shrugged. "I was, but then I got head hunted to be the coach for a new show choir here at McKinley."

Holly's eyes widened and she grinned. "Oh! You're the she-devil Will was talking about. Apparently it's war between the two of you."

Shelby snorted. "There's no war. I won."

Shelby suspected that Will had told Holly a very biased account of the situation. However, it seemed that Will hadn't mentioned her by name.

"I don't doubt that. As long as I've known you Shelby, you've always won. One way or another."

"Speaking of one way or another, are you free now?"

Holly nodded. "Yeah. Want to catch up?"

"Actually, I was hoping you could help me."

Holly grinned. "This sounds like that refresher course at teachers college all over again."

/-/-/-/-/

Shelby spent the next hour catching Holly up on what had happened at William McKinley so far that year (which very proudly included a video of Sectionals). Holly's view had been slanted, but she was smart enough to know that the story Will had told wouldn't be the complete one. Holly, in turn explained how Will had asked her to come in and show New Directions that they could still have fun and be a team even though they weren't in the show choir competition.

"So Santana's okay with being out now? And dating Brittany? I saw the campaign ad."

"Yeah. You know them?"

Holly chuckled. "Finally. I substituted for Will last year. From what I understood, they had been, uh, 'friends' for a while when Brittany started dating Artie." She said with air quotation marks. "I'm glad they've finally gotten together. They're good for each other."

Shelby smiled. "They really are. So, will you help me?"

"Of course. What are friends for?"

/-/-/-/-/

Shelby arrived outside of the choir room just in time to hear Holly question why none of the New Directions had decided to join the Troubletones. She asked in innocently enough that Will couldn't fault her.

"I mean, I understand that you guys are a family or something, and I respect that. But, well, it's a really good opportunity."

"They're our enemy. We can't just join them." Finn said with a frown in his voice.

The was a heavy pause before Holly spoke again.

"Since when?"

"What? What do you mean?"

"It's simple Finn. Since when? When did the Troubletones become your enemy?"

"They've always been the enemy." Finn all but shouted.

"No they haven't. They used to be part of New Directions until this year."

"Holly, enough." Will snapped. "This isn't why I asked you to come in."

"No, you asked me to come in to justify to yourself the fact that you are holding students who you claim to care about, back. I get that I'm not really the best person to be talking about this sort of thing, but these kids are good enough to win Nationals and you're stopping them."

Shelby was surprised that the next person who spoke up wasn't Will, objecting to Holly's statement. It was Rachel.

"Miss Holiday is right. They're not our enemy."

"How can you say that, Rach? Santana's always bullied you."

"You seem to have forgotten, Finn Hudson, that once upon a time you weren't much better."

"Rach, I apologised for that. And Santana's…"

"Santana is not my enemy, she's yours. I refuse to let your problems stop me from being a star. Even if that means I'm not the only star."

There was a loud smashing sound, and Shelby guessed Finn had kicked a chair. She had noticed that the boy had a bit on an anger problem when things didn't go his way.

"So you're going to leave New Directions for the Troubletones?"

Rachel sighed. "I haven't decided, Finn, but I haven't ruled out the option either."

"I think I'm just going to leave, Will." Holly said to break the awkward silence. "It was nice to see you again. You guys too."

Shelby had already started walking away when Holly came up behind her and linked their arms together.

"Dinner?"

Holly nodded happily. "Sure, I was meant to have dinner with Will and Emma tonight, but I think Will's going to come down with something."

"If you don't mind, I'd prefer to make dinner at mine. I haven't got anyone to babysit Beth."

"Beth?"

"My daughter. It's complicated."

/-/-/-/-/

Shelby put the audition lists up again as soon as she got to school the next morning. By midday, there were already four names, five including Quinn. By the end of the day, everyone in New Directions had signed up.

_Quinn Fabray_

_Rachel Berry*_

_Sam Evans_

_Tina Cohen-Chang_

_Mike Chang_

_Kurt Hummel_

_Blaine Anderson_

_Artie Abrams_

_Puckersaurus_

_Rory Flanagan_

_Finn Hudson_

Shelby Corcoran - 5

William Schuester – 4

xxxxx

**pounding of native drums**, **Blocking Brainwaves**, , **manatees-have-thick-skin**, and **OTHangels** – I'm glad you guys enjoyed the update, and the Troubletones winning. Heck, they don't even have to be winning to be awesome. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Too. :) (even though it was late)

**chicavolcom89**– I miss them too. I want Shelby back, and everything centred around Santana and Brittany. *nods*

**kid2150**– I'm going to have fun with Finn next chapoter. I'm sure you'll enjoy. :K

**HappyHereford**– I don't know, _can_ you join the Troubletones? I hoped you liked sneaky Sugar. There will be more of her, at least, I have plans for more of her. She's so cute. On another note, I actually considered bringing Sunshine in, but honestly, that wouldn't really work. It'd be funny though.

**Random Dice**– That's cause Sue IS a god. :P I like your 'Sandy Jr.' comment. Will is kind of Skleezey (that's skanky and slutty put together). Like that time he broke up the fight between Santana and Quinn and got to second base with both of them.

KS – WOO! LONG COMMENT! I agree with everything (well all but one, but close enough. And even then it's just cause my story is AU and doesn't follow cannon) you said. Including Sue setting fire to Will's vests. That would be funny.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee. I would like to though.

**Author's Note:** Well, I did say I didn't know when updates would be. Still, sorry for the wait. I've had a lot of assignments and other school work to do over the past two months. I'll try to get the next part up sooner.

**Author's Note 2:** I'm getting to the part of the story where I have to deal with Will, and like everything else so far, I have a few ideas but I want your input. What do you want to see happen to the sub-par Spanish teacher?

Shelby placed her mug of coffee on the counter next to her while she reached over to get the sugar packets stored near the kettle. By the time she turned back, the mug was gone. A quick check around the staff room showed Sue sitting on the other side of the room with a blue 'Vocal Adrenaline' mug. Shelby sighed and headed towards the cheerleading coach. That woman was like a ninja, popping up and sneaking around when you least expected it. It almost made Shelby long for Carmel. Carmel was _normal_. Mostly normal. Shelby sat in the chair opposite Sue and pulled the coffee mug towards her and emptied two sugar packets into it. Sue took a sip of her protein shake.

"Morning Sue."

"Good morning Shelby. What do I owe the pleasure of your company this morning?"

"What do you want Sue?"

"Ah, straight to the point. I like that."

Shelby just waited.

"Are we friends, Shelby? I'd like to think we're friends. I'd say we bonded over a mutual interest in making William lose, which by the way, you did an amazing job of. But the point is that friends do things for each other, right?"

Shelby nodded slowly. She wouldn't have said 'friends' exactly. They had an agreeable relationship, but friends? Maybe close acquaintances.

Sue continued without any prompting. "You wouldn't know, but this is my first Christmas alone since my sister died."

Sue's face was carefully blank. That blank face was, strangely enough, the most emotional Shelby had ever seen the other woman.

"And I want to help our miserable community in her name. Unlike me, she was the sweetest person this world has ever seen and every Christmas she dragged me to the local homeless shelter to help out. I'm not going to stop that now."

"That sounds like an amazing thing to do, Sue, and even though I don't know your sister, I'm sure she'd be happy that you're continuing. But I don't understand how this involves me."

"I want your Troubletones to perform and help me. I would ask my Cheerios, but taking them means that I, Sue Sylvester support homeless people. I don't, and I can't allow the average people in this town to think so."

"You do realise that the Troubletones are predominantly Cheerios, right?"

"Of course, but the mere fact that they wouldn't be dressed as such would decrease the chances of them being associated with me. And, as they'll be busy singing and acting like freaks, I can safely ignore them."

Shelby frowned into her coffee. "I'll ask them, no promises though."

Sue grinned evilly. "And if you somehow threaten or con the Cheerios into saying yes, I will put my foot down and refuse."

Sue huffed. "Fine. Deal."

/-/-/-/-/-/

That afternoon was the auditions for the Troubletones. Shelby and the Troubletones sat in the third row back from the stage, each armed with a clipboard and pen.

Shelby looked down the row at her team.

"Okay, we're all going to have a say in who joins, and anyone can voice their opinion at the discussion tomorrow where we vote. These clipboards are to write down anything that comes to mind. You don't _have_ to write anything, it's optional. Try not to voice your opinion during the performances."

Shelby looked down at her own clipboard where everyone auditioning was written. She picked a microphone off the floor near her feet and turned it on.

"First up are Mike and Tina."

Mike and Tina walked on stage holding hands. They both smiled and introduced themselves and the song they would be singing. It was an up beat duet in which Mike sang just as much as Tina. From what Shelby understood and had seen in previous New Directions performances, Mike singing was a relatively new thing. Apparently Brittany was thinking the same thing. Shelby could only just over hear the blonde telling Santana how awesome it was that Mike could sing now and that she hoped his dancing wouldn't start sucking seeing as he gave up his singing voice for his ability to dance. After their performance, they sat in the front row, where everyone else would join them after they had auditioned. It wasn't how Shelby liked to run her auditions, but apparently New Directions was more comfortable to do it this way.

Quinn was second, singing 'Saving the World' followed by Sam (who included a few slightly inappropriate dance moves that made Santana giggle and murmur "White Chocolate") singing 'Truly, Madly, Deeply' quite obviously to Mercedes. The diva was flustered and trying to look anywhere but at Sam.

Rory sung some song Shelby had never heard of about being Irish, and while it wasn't a bad performance, it wasn't exactly memorable. A quick glance to the side revealed Santana drawing a leprechaun being squashed with a giant potato. Apparently she wasn't too fond of Rory.

Artie, not so surprisingly rapped. He claimed that he needed to show off how different he was to everyone else auditioning. The part of Shelby that had worked in show business in New York for years before ruthlessly running Vocal Adrenaline wanted to point out that he was in a wheelchair. That was plenty different. She was kind of thankful that she wasn't coaching another show choir like Vocal Adrenaline anymore.

They had been a step down from Broadway in intensity, but everything else had been the same. She had been the same. Driven, manipulative and, if she was being honest with herself, an outright bitch.

Eventually that had changed. Because of Rachel. Meeting her daughter for the first time in sixteen years had been one of the most amazing things Shelby had ever done. And adopting Beth? That was also at the top of her list. She didn't care about winning and being the best (though she certainly still enjoyed it), not when she had Beth. Her daughter was more important. It was weird, and it made her a completely different person. Shelby liked it. But there were times; like now, that the vicious part of herself emerged.

Shelby couldn't help but think that Will must have to have been desperate to let a boy in a wheelchair join New Directions. He could definitely sing, but choreographing around a wheelchair must be a bitch. She wouldn't actually refuse anyone into her show choir on the grounds that they were disabled. Well, not anymore. It was a good thing he wasn't auditioning for Vocal Adrenaline.

Finn preformed next, and Shelby zoned out. If anyone actually voted for him to join the Troubletones, she would faint from surprise. It seemed like everyone else had the same idea, because no one except Sugar seemed focused. And Sugar, Sugar was frowning, which was pretty hard to make her do, because the girl adored music in all its forms. She would head bop to Beethoven.

Puck preformed 'Paradise City', not so subtly winking at Shelby every time he sung a line about girls or sex. It was awkward, at least for Shelby, and by the look of disgust etched on Santana and Mercedes' faces they had a problem with it to. Mercedes lent across Brittany to whisper to the Latina.

"Why did we date him?"

Santana snorted. "At least you didn't sleep with him."

"Santana's much better." Brittany giggled.

Mercedes shook her head, use to the over share that was the 'Brittana' sex life and just happy that this time it wasn't too graphic.

Shelby felt sick, and more than anything she was relieved that she had never gone further than kissing Puck. No only was he a student, but he'd also had sex with most of her other students. Some of which she was quite close to. Oh, that was just so gross.

Thankfully, Rachel was next, and blew all thoughts of Puck out of Shelby's mind. She sung 'Beautiful Disaster', accompanied only by the piano. Shelby couldn't be prouder. Her daughter was amazing. It was that simple. And if she wanted to make it on Broadway, she would. She had no doubts about that. She wanted to be there. For Rachel's first off-Broadway show and her first Broadway show, and very show in between. She'd be there because she was so proud that her daughter was going to live her dream.

Kurt and Blaine were the last to audition. They sung 'Last night of the world' from Miss Saigon. Kurt sung Kim's part (by his own choice if the gusto of his singing was anything to go by) and Blaine sung Chris' lines. They were good, and it was obvious that they had put a lot of passion and practising time into the piece.

Shelby stood and thanked everyone for auditioning and chose to ignore Will when he stormed in seconds after Kurt and Blaine finished singing. Unfortunately, he made it impossible.

"Hey guys. Good news, we've been asked to perform by PBS for a Christmas special. Sadly," he said with fake sorrow. "only New Directions has been invited, so the Troubletones will just have to miss out. Anyway, I hope this shows you guys that New Directions still has a purpose even though we aren't going to regionals."

Shelby Corcoran – 5

William Schuester – 5

Damn that man. Sure they had an opportunity now, but even Will couldn't be so naïve as to believe that these opportunities would keep coming. Not unless he went looking for them, and frankly, Shelby didn't think he had it in him. She didn't even want to get started on him specifically excluding the Troubletones. She wanted to snap at him, but she wouldn't. She wouldn't sink that low in front of her students.

"We'll get back to you by the end of the week." She said as she read her clipboard full of notes.

"What? You aren't going to tell us now?"

Shelby glanced up at Finn. "No, I'm not. The Troubletones and I are going to discuss our opinions, and then, as a group we'll make our decision."

"But, don't you decide who gets in?" Puck said with a frown.

"Again, no. I'm their coach, not their leader. I'm just another member of the team. I'll step in to break up an argument, and in this situation, like the rest of the group I have a vote, but I don't have veto. We work because we have a happy environment where everyone is comfortable with their fellow members. Why would I jeopardize that?"

There were a few amazed faces from the New Directions members, and Santana looked incredibly smug. She wasn't alone. Sugar and Mercedes were smirking, though admittedly their smirks were better hidden. Shelby couldn't be sure that Santana's smug smirk was from New Directions' faces though, as Brittany was whispering into her ear and had an evil smirk of her own. She was pretty sure that those girls would be the death of her.

Will scoffed. "That's not how you ran Vocal Adrenaline. You were harsh and made all their decisions."

"Yes, but the Troubletones aren't Vocal Adrenaline, so why would I treat them the same. But I'm not going to justify myself to you, Will. I don't need to."

"That just means you can't justify your treatment of your past students."

"No, it means my previous students knew what they were getting into when they auditioned, and I never had any complaints. That's more than you can say. This is incredibly inappropriate, and I will not continue to argue with you in front of students. Now," Shelby turned to the Troubletones. "we'll be having our next meeting tomorrow. I'll see you then."

Shelby Corcoran – 6

William Schuester – 5

She picked up the microphone she had been using earlier and moved to put it back in its place back stage. Shelby heard everyone slowly filter out of the auditorium. She tried not to listen, but it became hard when Finn started yelling.

"So what? You think I'm a disaster?"

"No, Finn. I love you. You know I love you." Rachel said sweetly. "But I don't approve of what you did to Santana. And I don't approve of how you reacted to it. She didn't deserve to be outed, and she didn't deserve to be forced to be happy about it. I didn't even realise what we were doing until Kurt…"

"So he's against me to?"

"No, Finn. Neither of us are. We both love you in our own ways. But what you did to Santana was wrong."

Finn let out a frustrated growl. "If she hadn't kept insulting me, I wouldn't have said anything. She provoked me!"

There was loud stomping and a slamming door. Shelby assumed Finn had stormed out.

"That doesn't make it okay Finn." Rachel said in a quiet whisper.

A few minutes later, when it sounded like Rachel still hadn't left; Shelby came out onto the stage. Rachel sat on the edge with her legs dangling over the edge of the stage. She jumped slightly when Shelby sat next to her.

Shelby frowned at her lap. "I… um…"

She gave up on trying to speak and pulled Rachel into a hug.

"I don't need you to be my mother."

"Then consider me a friend."

"I… I guess I could do that."

/-/-/-/-/-/

Just in case you want to know:

**Quinn –** Saving the World by Brooke Fraser

**Sam –** Truly, Madly, Deeply by Savage Garden

**Puck –** Paradise City by Guns and Roses

**Rachel –** Beautiful Disaster by Kelly Clarkson

**MKAmericanhero****, ****HappyHereford****, ****chicavolcom89** and **Cissy Black Malfoy** – I'm glad you guys liked Holly. And never fear, she'll be back for at least one more chapter. You'll be happy to know I'm working on a one-shot of when Holly and Shelby meet. :D

**mynameischarla****, ****IceTrekkie****, ****santanalopez4ever** and L – I hope you all enjoyed this update. Sorry it didn't come sooner.

**pounding of native drums** – Well, I guess you'll just have to wait and see. I am dragging this out aren't I? It wasn't my intention, it just ended up that way. There's so much I want to put in.

**Luthiem Vardamir** – I'm glad you like it, but I think 'perfection' is stretching it a bit. But, I digress. I'm glad you're enjoying the story. :)

**Author's Note 3:** I also want to ask people's opinion on Rachel. Previously, everyone's hated her, pretty much. But I'm not sure if that's just the vocal people and some like her, or if everyone actually hates her. Do you dislike the Rachel I'm writing (and how I believe she would have acted if RIB were willing to throw anything negative towards Finn) Personally, I dislike cannon Rachel, but like fanon Rachel (usually she's a raging lesbian, what's not to like?).

Yes I am asking a lot, but I feel this story is for everyone, not just my writing pleasure.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee. I would like to though.

**Author's Note 1: **I have assignments, still. It sucks. But it also means that I won't really be able to write over the next three weeks. So have an extra long update.

**Interlude – Santana Leads by Many**

The Troubletones sat in a circle on chairs in Shelby's large office/classroom. They each had their notes on the auditions, and were preparing to vote on the auditions. Shelby drummed her fingers on her desk before speaking up.

"Okay, so I figured we'd go one person at a time, and anyone can say something if they feel the need to, and then we'll vote. Sound good?"

The Troubletones all agreed and waited for Shelby to say the first name.

"I want you to keep in mind that if we end up with a major discrepancy in the male to female ratio, we may need to discuss the idea of staying an all girls group. Well, we might as well start with Mike and Tina."

"Mike's an awesome dancer." Brittany said with a happy grin.

No one else had anything to say, so a vote was cast. Both Mike and Tina were voted in unanimously.

Kurt and Blaine were a little more difficult. Kurt was voted in by everyone, but Blaine didn't get nearly enough votes. In fact the only people to vote for him were Shelby, Mercedes and three of the Cheerios.

Mercedes frowned at Sugar, Santana and Brittany. "Can I ask why you guys didn't vote for Blaine?"

Brittany shrugged. "Sanny doesn't like him, and I want her to be happy here."

Mercedes nodded, accepting the answer and turned to Santana. Santana just stared back at the diva. How could she explain her negative vote for Blaine? She didn't like him at all, but it was more than that. She didn't like the way he tried to take control of everything. She didn't like the way he assumed he was the best singer. Santana hated to admit it, because she knew those were the same reasons Finn had for disliking Blaine too. He had been nice-ish after she had chewed Blaine and Kurt out for forcing her to be okay with herself, and had even offered friendship. But … it was hard. It was hard to ignore the part of herself that hated they way he acted like he was superior to everyone at McKinley just because he went to Dalton and wore a uniform with a blazer.

"He's like the worst of Rachel and Finn combined. He's bossy and wants to lead everyone, and acts like he's the best signer this school has ever seen. I left New Directions to get away from that. I'm not going to stand down now."

It took longer, but eventually Mercedes nodded her acceptance. To Santana it felt like a weight had lifted off her chest, and it was in that moment that she realised how much she valued Mercedes' friendship.

Sugar was next and just shrugged. "I don't really like anyone from New Directions too much, but Blaine gives me the creeps. I think it's his eyebrows. At least Kurt is cute, in a scrawny puppy sort of way."

Mercedes turned to the other Cheerios that Santana had encouraged (and ordered, but that was only a few of them) into joining. They looked genuinely surprised at being asked their opinion on their vote. They just shrugged.

Shelby wrote down the tally before calling out the next name.

"Sam?"

Sam, like Mike, Tina and Kurt had everyone's votes, which caused Mercedes to grin like a mad woman. Santana gently bumped the diva, giving her a knowing look. Mercedes blushed and looked at the ground, no longer grinning, but still smiling.

Puck was voted on next with only three votes for (Mercedes, and two of the Cheerios) and ten against.

Five Cheerios voted for Rory, but everyone else was against it. Sugar reasoned that he didn't really _do_ much except follow Finn around, and that wasn't a particularly useful skill.

Quinn was a little more difficult. Shelby voted against her, but Sugar, Santana, Brittany and Mercedes al voted for her. The other Cheerios were split. Five were against her joining, and three were for it. Shelby frowned as she wrote down the tally.

"To be completely honest, I wouldn't be comfortable with Quinn in the Troubletones. She's already approached me about joining the Troubletones, but I turned her down. At the time, I knew she only wanted to join to get closer to me and thus, closer to Beth."

"Is that a bad thing?"

Shelby looked at Santana and sighed. "No, not really. But she doesn't just want to be in Beth's life. Quinn wants Beth back and she's obsessed with it."

Santana threaded her fingers through Brittany's and met her girlfriend's eyes. They knew Quinn. Probably better than anyone else. They knew that Quinn had always been slightly off, and that it was the result of trying to live the life her father had chosen for her. A life that did not suit Quinn in the least. She lashed out at people, causing as much pain as she could, but at Unholy Trinity sleepovers she was constantly seeking approval that what she had done was right. Santana felt horrible about it, because she had given that approval; she had condoned everything Quinn did.

But they were better people now, and it was obvious that Quinn needed help. Santana wanted that for her, but getting Quinn to agree was another thing.

Unless she had an incentive.

Santana turned from Brittany to address Shelby.

"Quinn needs help."

"I know."

"And she won't help herself, she doesn't know how to. But if she has a reason to get help, and someone to show her where to go, she will get better."

"What exactly are you getting at, Santana?"

"Can we create a probationary position? One that Quinn will only get if she agrees to … I dunno … go to a therapist or something?"

Brittany squeezed Santana's hand before adding her opinion.

"Quinn's been my friend for a long time. This could help her. I want to help her."

Shelby rubbed a hand across her face. "You're right, we can help her. Hell, I know what she's going through. What kind of teacher would I be if I turned my back on her now? There will be a few ground rules though. One, under no circumstances is she ever coming to my house or in a ten mile radius of Beth. Two, she gets help straight away, and if she stops, she's out. Is that acceptable? I said yesterday that I wouldn't be a dictator, and I don't want to be. But this concerns Beth, my baby, and I won't let her get hurt. So, is that acceptable?"

Santana smiled softly.

"Yeah, I think that's more than acceptable. The final decision is up to Quinn of course, but I think those terms are fair. What about the rest of you?"

Brittany and the Cheerios nodded.

"Yeah," Said Mercedes. "I think that's fair. I'd love to have the Quinn who lived with me back."

"Okay, we'll move on then. Rachel?"

Everyone voted, except Santana. The results were even, six on either side. Shelby had of course voted for Rachel, along with five of the Cheerios.

Mercedes stared at Santana incredulously. "You're not voting against Rachel?"

"Apparently not."

"_Why?_"

Santana frowned. "I'm not really sure. Berry's annoying. Sometimes I want to strangle her just to make her shut up. But, I don't exactly hate, or even dislike Berry."

"I do. I hate her." Brittany added.

Santana smirked. "I know you do, B. But that doesn't stop you from liking her."

"True."

Santana knew that Brittany was someone that not a lot of people understood. Like now, if Mercedes' confused face was any indication. Brittany hated the way Rachel bossed everyone around and how she insisted that she has to have every solo, no matter what. She hated the way that Rachel talked down to her, and acted like she was stupid. But most of all, Brittany hated the way Rachel's existence made Quinn and Santana mean. It was simple, except it wasn't. Because Brittany liked Rachel's voice, and the way she never gave up. She liked the way Rachel made up songs about things in her room and was convinced that they should get together and do a mash up of 'My Headband' and 'My Cup'.

Brittany didn't understand it sometimes, but Santana did. Because unlike everyone else, she knew Brittany was an incredibly complicated person and that what it really came down to was that Brittany liked everybody. Even when she hated them.

"I respect Berry. I've always known that she would get somewhere, and I believe that it's only a matter of time before we see her in the newspapers. And despite the fact that she annoys me, it feels wrong to do something that could hurt her future. Throwing a slushie was never going to stop her, but this could. Berry can sing, we know that, and if we can give Quinn a chance, why can't we give Berry a chance?"

And of course, Santana knew that there as a part of her that wanted this not for herself or the Troubletones, but for Shelby. Shelby had helped her so much; it would be nice to return the favour. She knew Shelby wanted some sort of relationship with her biological daughter, it was painfully obvious. Hell, who wouldn't?

"What about Blaine? I know that we all left New Directions to get away from Rachel and Finn and what Blaine was becoming, but if you're going to give Rachel a chance, shouldn't you give Blaine a chance too?"

Santana nodded. "Fair enough. I'll be honest, the only reason I wouldn't give Blaine another chance is because I don't care about what happens to him. I know I sound like a bitch, but I don't. If Berry got stuck in Lima, I don't know what I would believe in anymore. But Blaine? I couldn't care less."

"Either way, what are you suggesting?" Asked Mercedes.

"The same thing as Quinn."

"You want Rachel to go to a therapist?" Sugar asked with a smirk.

Santana threw her head back and laughed, raising a hand for a quick hi-five.

"Oh, I would love to see her face if we suggested that. But I was thinking more along the lines of a probationary position in which she doesn't get to sing a solo at Regionals, and any other solos at competitions will depend on her membership status. If she can tone it down and be a member rather than a leader, Berry can become a full member and will have just as much right to sing solos. And no songs every meeting. That got boring fast."

Mercedes nodded. "If Rachel could do that, I think I'd be fine with her joining. What about everyone else?"

Sugar agreed as long as she got to sing a solo at the next meeting before Rachel did, and Brittany happily agreed saying it was fair. The three Cheerios who hadn't voted for Rachel said they could put up with her if Santana could.

"And Blaine?" Shelby asked. "Are we going to offer him the same deal?"

Santana sighed dramatically. "I could live with it."

Brittany giggled. "Me too."

"I believe," Shelby said. "that means we've voted yes on Blaine. Next up is Artie."

Five Cheerios, Mercedes and Brittany voted yes, while Shelby, Sugar, Santana and the remaining three Cheerios voted no. Santana didn't feel any animosity towards Brittany for her vote. She knew before Brittany did that she would vote for her ex-boyfriend. Because despite the fact that Santana didn't really like it, the two were still friends.

So Artie was voted in, leaving only one person left to vote on.

"Last is Finn."

Five Cheerios voted for him, and everyone else voted against. And if that didn't make Santana adore her fellow Troubletones (all those but the five Cheerios, of course) she didn't know what would.

"So," Shelby began. "Finn's not in. that leaves us with Mike, Sam, Artie, Kurt and Tina as full members, and Quinn, Rachel and Blaine as probationary members. However, there is still a few things I'd like to discuss. You five," She said pointing at five of the Cheerios. "have all voted for the same people."

"That's not weird." Said Emily quickly.

"No, it's not. But they all vote after you do. They follow your lead."

"So?"

"Before each vote you read something on you palm. What do you have written there, Emily?"

Emily clenched her fist.

"Nothing."

Another Cheerio, one of the three who Shelby hadn't pointed to wrapped her hand around Emily's wrist and forced her fingers away from her palm.

"It's a list of names." Andrea said. "It's all the people who they voted for."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"No, it doesn't." Shelby lay her clipboard on her lap and stared expectantly at the girls. So did everyone else in the room, though Santana's glare was certainly more frightening.

"We were offered money to vote for certain people." Emily said before quickly looking at the ground as the pressure of everyone's questioning looks got to her.

Santana stood up quickly, her chair skidding backwards. It was Brittany's hand around her wrist that stopped her from doing anything and it was Shelby's hand lightly pressing down on her shoulder that got her to sit. Santana was furious. This was _her_ show choir, _her _team, and_ her_ family. How dare someone try and sabotage that. She was sick and tired of being fucked with.

Brittany's arm wrapped around Santana's waist.

"Stop the violence."

Santana shook her head and kissed the blonde's head to hide the small smile that was forming on her lips. Brittany always managed to calm her down.

Emily was clearly frightened of her cheerleading captain, but she was brave enough to continue speaking.

"We were always going to tell you. Just after we got a copy of the tally. We were told we wouldn't get paid unless we had some sort of proof that we voted the right way."

"You shouldn't have accepted the offer in the first place, and you should have told m… us straight away." Snapped Santana.

"Santana."

Santana huffed and crossed her arms across her chest, allowing Shelby to talk.

"Seeing as your votes were influenced, I think you'd agree that they no longer count."

The Cheerios nodded.

"How much were you offered?"

"Fifty dollars each."

"And what were you expected to do?"

"We were told to vote for certain people. We had to have proof that we had done what we were told, otherwise we wouldn't get paid. I was going to make a copy of the votes."

Emily looked guiltily down at the floor. Without prompting, she revealed who had bribed them.

"It was Finn. Any other time I swear we wouldn't have taken the money, but well, Christmas is coming up and a little extra cash…."

"Quiet!" Snapped Santana.

She was fuming. Finn, it was always Finn fucking Hudson. Why couldn't he just go and die in a hole?

"Santana, calm down."

"Really? You're going to tell me to calm down?"

Shelby smirked. "Yes. Finn tried and failed to make this club the way he wanted it. But he doesn't know that, so we can have some fun."

Shelby stood up and made her way over to her desk. She pulled out a pad of paper with the McKinley letterhead and her name at the bottom.

_Mike – 13 for, 0 against_

_Tina – 13 for, 0 against_

_Kurt – 13 for, 0 against_

_Blaine – 7 for, 6 against_

_Sam – 8 for, 5 against_

_Quinn – 7 for, 6 against_

_Rachel – 13 for, 0 against_

_Artie – 7 for, 6 against_

_Noah – 3 for, 10 against_

_Rory – 5 for, 8 against_

_Finn – _

She showed the sheet to the Troubletones.

"Now, I'm going to change my vote from against, to for, Finn. Does anyone else want to?"

Santana stared at Shelby blankly for a second before an evil smirk appeared on her lips.

"Yes, I'd love to." She said with a snarl.

_Finn – 7 for, 6 against_

"Right, well this is for you." Shelby said, handing the piece of paper with results on it to Emily.

"Wait a minute." Mercedes protested. "What's that for?"

"That's the results list before we make the alterations due to this incident. Now, it looks like the only person who's tally is really affected is Artie. Taking away the five points he had in his favour from those five leaves him with two for and six against. So it looks like Artie has not been voted in. That's not the end of it though. I know we've all voted, but I'd like to point out that we have a four to fifteen ratio of males to females, and as we saw when New Directions preformed, it looks ridiculous."

"But, we already agreed that we'd to vote them in." Mercedes said sadly. She knew that Shelby was right, but that didn't mean she was happy about it.

"I know, and I feel like a bitch for bringing it up, but I truly believe that our performance would suffer. If you disagree, I'm more than willing to listen."

Mercedes sighed. "No, you're right. New Directions' performance at Sectionals looked and sounded really uneven. And let's be honest, we've always been a girl power sort of group."

One of the Cheerios interrupted. "We have a few guys in the Cheerios, and they don't make it look weird."

"It's a different dynamic." Santana explained. "They stand at the back and do 'guy' things to support the female Cheerios. I can guarantee that these guys _won't_ stand in the back."

"True." Mercedes said. "But I still don't want to just kick them out. I mean, I would love to sing with Kurt again. He's my best friend. He deserves the opportunity just as much as Rachel does."

"There's more to a show choir than performing. Mike is an amazing dancer, but from what I've seen, he's also a really good choreographer."

"And Kurt is amazing with clothes." Brittany said with an excited smile, though Santana knew it was more to do with the idea of dancing with Mike again.

"Exactly. We can offer other positions."

They spent the next quarter of an hour discussing possible positions for the boys they had voted in. but at the end they still only had Mike down as choreographer and Kurt as costumes. Though Sugar had suggested Sam as moral officer.

"Are we happy with what we've decided today?" Shelby asked.

The Cheerios, along with Sugar, Santana and Brittany all nodded.

Mercedes just responded with "Happy enough."

"Then this meeting is over. I'll see you all at our next practice."

Santana got up, pulling Brittany up by their still tangled fingers and pressed her lips to her girlfriend's cheek.

"I want to talk to Shelby for a minute. You should head to class. You've got history with Mercedes, I'll be there shortly."

Brittany nodded and pecked Santana quickly on the lips. "See you soon Sanny."

She ran off to catch up with Mercedes.

"How can I help you, Santana?" Shelby said as she packed away the chairs that had been used for the meeting.

"You were relieved when Puck didn't get in."

"I…" She looked uncomfortable, and Santana didn't blame her.

"Just a word of advice, stay away from him. You already know he got Quinn pregnant, but did you know that he dated Rachel?"

Shelby paled and looked a little sickened.

"Yeah, I thought not. You're a grown woman, and I can't tell you what to do. But, we're friends or something like that, right? I mean, you've helped me, and I've helped you, and that's the sort of things friends do. But Puck? That's just gross."

"How did you know?"

"Puck's not good at subtle, and once upon a time that was me he was leering at all the time. Then it was Zizies. Puck doesn't really change. And before you can even think to ask, I'm pretty sure no one else knows and no I'm not going to tell anyone. Friends or something, remember?"

Santana wasn't stupid. Telling anyone would just leave the Troubletones with no choir coach and no way to get to Nationals. And she liked the woman. She was … Shelby was _nice_. A lot nicer than the people Santana had to deal with every day. Shelby was different in other ways too. Shelby cared; about important things like education, and equality and fair chances and winning. But she also cared about Santana. It was nice to have someone other than Brittany supporting her all the time. Though Brittany's support would always be the most important. Santana could do anything if Brittany was supporting her.

But this topic was far too mushy to deal with right now, and right here.

"How about I deal with Quinn, and you deal with Berry? Sound good?"

"Yeah." Shelby said with a nod. "I think that would be best. And let me deal with Finn, okay? I have a plan, and it's best if he doesn't know that we know he bribed the girls."

"Just make him pay, Shelby."

Shelby smirked. "Oh I will."

/-/-/-/-/-/

Santana was learning that Quinn was surprisingly hard to find when you wanted her. Santana had spent a good twenty minutes looking during their lunch period and still hadn't found her. She wasn't giving up though. Quinn wasn't in the choir room, or the library, or the cafeteria. She wasn't still in class, or in one of the other classrooms, which meant the only other place to look was outside. Quinn wasn't in the parking lot, or on the football field. Which left one more place, under the bleachers.

That was exactly where Santana found her, along with the Skanks, smoking. Quinn may have dyed her hair back to blonde and taken out her nose ring, but Santana had always known that there was a part of Quinn that was still a Skank. Because Quinn was a lot of different things, no matter what she looked like.

"Harder habit to kick that you think, isn't it?"

Quinn snorted. "Like you would know."

"How quickly you forget. Britt made me quit two years ago."

Quinn frowned. "Oh yeah. You're so whipped."

"And you're a psychotic bitch. We need to talk, and it's a conversation I don't think you'll want to have in front of the Skanks."

Quinn glanced at the girls sitting on the old couch Coach had provided.

"You're probably right. You're involved. _I_ probably don't want to hear it. I'll see you at mine once you finish practice."

"See you then, Quinn. Skanks." She threw over her shoulder as she left.

Santana had come to an understanding with the Skanks when Quinn was still rocking the punk look. They stopped threatening her every time she wanted to talk to Quinn, and she stopped Sue from kicking them off school property after hours.

/-/-/-/-/-/

Cheerios practice had been … interesting. Santana had quite obviously been punishing the girls who had been bought by Finn. But what did they expect? They screwed her over, and she wasn't going to forgive that; at least not easily. Coach Sylvester wouldn't have stopped her (she thought it was funny, and had been weirdly distant all week) and in the end it was Brittany telling her off that made her call out to the girls and tell them to take a break from suicides before joining everyone else.

Santana had showered at school, which she preferred not to do when she had the choice. But today she didn't have a choice, because she needed to get to Quinn's house. Brittany had hurried home to look after her younger sister, so Santana took her time. She was the last to leave McKinley, and if the annoyed look on Quinn's face was any indication, she arrived later than Quinn had expected her.

Quinn huffed, but didn't actually comment on Santana's supposed lateness. It was something Santana was used to. Quinn liked to make people feel guilty and wrong without having to point it out. It no longer worked on Santana. She just ignored Quinn's annoyance and dragged the blonde upstairs. They settled in Quinn's room. Quinn at her desk and Santana on Quinn's bed. It was only unusual in that Brittany wasn't with them.

"You're crazy, Quinn."

"Excuse me?"

Santana sighed and lifted herself up onto her elbows. "I've seen you at your best and your worst, and right now you're so below worst I'm surprised you can function."

"If you're just going to insult me, Satan, you can leave." Quinn spat.

Santana ignored her and continued. "And you know what? Maybe… no, definitely. I definitely should have been there to help you when I found out you were preggers, but I wasn't. I'm sorry for that, by the way. I was a bitch and I shouldn't have been because we were supposed to be friends."

"We were never friends, we used each other."

"Well, yeah, that's us. But we were s_upposed_ to be friends and we've both sucked at that. Now I'm going to change that. You need help, Q. Like, professional help."

"I do _not_ need 'help'." Quinn snarled.

"You're not you, Quinn. You're some crazy bitch like the ones we used to watch on TV. Like the women we use to laugh at, and unless you get some sort of help, you can give up on seeing Beth ever again."

"What?"

Santana hated to use Beth. She understood how Quinn felt about her daughter. Like Beth was the only good thing about her life. Santana understood because Santana had been the same once. Obviously not about Beth, but about Brittany. Her girlfriend had been the only good thing for so long, even when they hadn't been dating. When everything else fell apart, there was still Brittany. As long as she had Brittany, she had hope that everything would be okay one day.

"You wanted to join the Troubletones so that you could get closer to Shelby so that you could get closer to Beth. The only way you can join the Troubletones is if you get help."

"Get out!"

"Quinn…"

"Get OUT! You're blackmailing me with my child. GET OUT!"

Santana got up from Quinn's bed. "Yeah, I guess I am. But I'm not a nice person, so what do you expect. You said it yourself, we're not friends. I've given you the ultimatum. You need to ask yourself if Beth's worth it."

She left quickly, because one of the scariest things Santana had ever seen was a furious Quinn, and Quinn was definitely furious.

But mostly Santana felt like shit. If someone had tried to pull what she just did but with Brittany, she figured she probably would have killed someone. God damn, why was she such a bitch?

/-/-/-/-/

Santana was still antagonising over the way she had handled the conversation with Quinn hours later as she was getting ready to go to bed. She had just laid down in bed and turned her bedside lamp off when her phone vibrated and lit up, casting the room in a pale glow.

**From Quinn: If I did agree to get help, who would I go to?**

Quinn had never really been one for text speak. Santana on the other hand was.

**To Quinn: Il ask dad Im sure he nos sum1.**

**From Quinn: Thanks.**

/-/-/-/-/

Two days later, Shelby had said she'd put up the results of the auditions shortly before lunch time. True to her word, the list was up when Santana walked by, but better yet, Finn and Rachel were reading the list when she got there.

_**Troubletones Auditions Response**_

_The following people have been accepted into the Troubletones:_

_Tina Choen-Chang_

_The following people are requested to speak with choir co-coordinator Ms. Corcoran as soon as possible about their audition results:_

_Rachel Berry_

_Quinn Fabray_

_Kurt Hummel_

_Mike Chang_

_The Troubletones appreciates and thanks everyone for auditioning and regrets that they couldn't accept everyone. If you have further enquires, please speak to Ms. Corcoran. _

_Practices for new members start the week before the holiday break on Monday._

Rachel's confused expression and Finn's outraged snarled were priceless. He had wasted two hundred and fifty dollars for nothing (though the Cheerios weren't complaining, they had been paid the day before). Santana laughed quietly. This wasn't what the boy wonder was expecting when he walked into school this morning. He had believed that the tally page he had been given had been the final copy. He had expected to join the Troubletones. Finn had a lot to learn and a lot to own up to. This was just the beginning for him.

/-/-/-/-/-/

**mynameischarla** and **aglee123**: Thanks for reviewing. I hope you enjoyed this chapter too. :)

**Walking Through a Dream**: And you pretty much just described my feelings on will and Finn. Will always sort of creeped me out. I think Sue's onto something with his hair.

**Cissy Black Malfoy**: I agree that ND does suck, and that they shouldn't get the PBS special. But one thing I've learnt in life is that you don't know until you ask. When it comes down to it, the people who ask for chances are the ones that get it. That's not to say that Shelby doesn't, just that she didn't this time. They definitely did ruin Rachel. It's kind of sad considering that she's the main character (at least in season one). The double standards they have with males and females in Glee is horrible. I do like that Santana comments in the Jackson episode that if Kurt had got the recording that they'd be using it. :P

**MusicFlowsWithin**: I'm glad people seem to be okay with Rachel. Considering all the hate she got in my comments before, I felt like I was taking a bit of a risk. But I had always intended her to join the TTs.

**The T.M**: Rachel turning down Finn and her speech about Broadway being her true love were some of the best parts of that episode. I wish she had stayed that way.

brittana faberry fan: I guess you'll just have to wait and see. :P

**LuvtheJEm**: I don't think there's really much to say that I haven't already said to you. So, uh, hi?


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Glee, shame.

Shelby wasn't particularly surprised that Mike and Tina were the first to approach her, right after lunch. She smiled at them and welcomed them into her office. She waited for them to talk, and after a few moments Mike spoke up.

"You, uh, wanted to talk to me."

"Yes. As I'm sure you noticed, none of the males who auditioned for the Troubletones were accepted, but that doesn't mean that their talent was over looked. In your case, Mike, I'd like to extend an invitation to have you work with the Troubletones as our choreographer."

Mike stared at Shelby with his mouth half open. It was Tina who spoke up for him.

"We weren't expecting that."

Shelby smirked slightly at Mike's still opened mouth. "Obviously."

Tina nudged Mike and he jolted out of shock.

"Um yeah. We really weren't expecting that."

"I'm not going to demand an answer now, from either of you. In fact, I think I'd prefer both you to go away and think about it. The last thing I need is anyone to join because they feel obliged and then drop out later. The Troubletones' next practice is on Monday. You can turn up or not. But I want both of you to remember what I said about auditioning. Take the same things into consideration, and if it's still worth it, take us up on the offer. If it's not still worth it, well, I'll be sad to see your talent go to waste, but I'll respect your decision."

Mike and Tina nodded as they stood up to leave. "Okay, we'll think about it."

Barely ten minutes after Tina and Mike had left Shelby's door was opened once again, and Quinn entered.

"What do you want?"

Shelby sighed. This wasn't a conversation she had been looking forward to. She just hoped Santana had already talked to Quinn.

"Has Santana talked to you?"

Quinn's jaw clenched. "Yes. Did you tell her what to say?"

"No, we just agreed on the conditions of you joining the Troubletones. She volunteered to talk to you. Did something happen?"

Quinn stared straight at Shelby. "It's none of your business what happened between Santana and I. You just need to know that I agreed to the terms."

"Really?"

"Yes." Quinn snapped. She let out a deep breath before speaking again; this time much calmer.

"Yes. I'll be attending my first session with my new therapist on Friday afternoon. I'll see you on Monday for practice, Miss. Corcoran."

"Shelby."

"What?"

"The Troubletones call me Shelby."

"Well, seeing as I am only a probationary member, I think I'll stick to Miss. Corcoran."

Quinn turned and left the room in a hurry.

"Well, at least that could have gone worse."

/-/-/-/-/-/

It wasn't until the school day had officially ended that Kurt appeared outside of Shelby's office, knocking softly on the open door. Shelby was glad she had decided to stick to her office for the day.

"Good afternoon, Kurt."

"You too, Miss. Corcoran. How can I help you?"

Shelby gestured for Kurt to take a seat opposite her desk. She could see Blaine hiding (badly) around the corner from her office door. Kurt sat down on the edge of the chair folding his legs carefully.

"I wanted to offer you a position in the Troubletones as a costume designer."

"Why?"

"Honestly? Because the girls like you and want to work with you again. You've obviously figured out that the Troubletones are staying an all girls group, and that's nothing against you, trust me. Kurt, you _were _voted in, but the male to female ratio, assuming everyone accepted the offer to join would be incredibly uneven."

"Why costumes designer?"

Shelby shrugged. "Why not? I assume it has something to do with your impeccable style."

Kurt frowned slightly. "I don't want to be a costume designer. I want to sing."

"I'm sorry, Kurt. But that's the position I have to offer you. It's yours if you want it. Please just understand that it's offered while thinking of you in the highest regard."

"I … no. I am a performer, and I will perform. That may not be in competitions anymore, but it's better than nothing."

Shelby smile gently at him. "Good on you. You don't want to give up your dream, I respect that. But the offer is still there. Good luck with your performing, Kurt."

Kurt stood and nodded his head sharply before leaving, Blaine falling into step beside him.

/-/-/-/-/-/

Shelby wasn't surprised at all that it took Rachel until Friday to approach her. She was walking towards the teacher's lounge for lunch when Rachel approached.

"Can I talk to you?"

"Of course, Rachel. Is there anywhere in particular you'd like to go."

"The auditorium is just around the corner."

They walked silently until they reached the auditorium. Rachel walked down the seating tiers and up onto the stage as if she knew that Shelby would obediently follow.

"I'll be honest, with you. I was disappointed when I wasn't accepted into the Troubletones. I felt that it was unfair, and that there was some sort of bias against me. Did I do something wrong, or offend someone? I know my audition was amazing."

Shelby held up a hand, and Rachel quickly stopped talking.

"I think the one thing you never need to worry about, Rachel, is having a bad audition. You were spectacular and everyone thought so."

She saw Rachel glance quickly towards the wings with a slightly pained look on her face.

"I just … then why didn't it get in?"

Shelby sighed and wrapped an arm around Rachel's shoulders, leading her to the edge of the stage where they could sit down. She risked a glance towards the wings and made out the shape of a person. Tall, and definitely male, but far too slim to be one of the football players. William Schuester.

"Rachel, you were amazing. Please believe that."

"You're just saying that because you think you need to. You're my birth mother, and despite everything that's happened between us, you're still obliged to say that."

"No, I'm not."

Shelby knew it wouldn't have taken much to make Rachel think she had performed badly. A few specially chosen sentences to play on the insecurities Rachel had just from being in contact with Shelby (and if the fact that she hurt her daughter by existing didn't hurt her, Shelby didn't know what would. Words like 'I guess no one was on their game that day' and 'Just because the Troubletones don't think you guys are any good doesn't mean I think the same' said at the first New Directions meeting after the auditions results had been posted. Shelby knew that Rachel was sensitive when it came to the people she cared about. She cared about their opinions. That was partly why Jesse's betrayal had hurt her so much. It wasn't Rachel's fault. Shelby had handled the situation with Jesse badly, very badly and the fact that Rachel apparently couldn't trust her now and still felt like she had been abandoned was all Shelby's fault. All it took was a few choice words by the sad excuse for a show choir coach (it must have been him, why else would he be hovering in the wings?), and Rachel's self-esteem was shattered. She didn't trust Shelby's words because she still didn't trust Shelby, and when Schuester (who she did trust, though Shelby _could not _figure out why) had practically told her that she wasn't good enough.

Shelby Corcoran - 5

William Schuester – 5

But Shelby would not let him have the last word, and she would not let him destroy her daughter like that.

"You were amazing, Rachel. I can't say that enough, and I'm certainly not the only one who thought so. You weren't rejected exactly, but we did run into a few problems."

"What sort of problems?"

"Santana, Mercedes, Brittany and even Sugar all have experiences where they're been pushed to the back so that you can shine, and you have to know that grates on their nerves. In the Troubletones, as it is they are guaranteed solos and duets and large singing parts in group numbers, and it was questioned what would happen if you joined. Would you demand all the solos like in New Directions? Would you perform every day? Would they be going back to what they had left? But despite their fears, Santana still pointed out that you are as amazing as I said." Shelby explained softly.

"Santana?"

"Yes, Santana. I'm not going to go into detail, but Quinn accepted with a probationary status, and once that was established, Santana suggested something similar for you."

"What does that mean, 'probationary'?"

"It means what it sounds like. You have the option to join the Troubletones as a probationary member. You'd have restrictions placed on you, and if you stick to those conditions then chances are you'll become a full member and have the same rights as everyone else."

Rachel scoffed indignantly. "You're not exactly being forthcoming. What sort of restrictions? Am I not allowed solos? Am I not allowed to sing? Am I expected to sway in the background? Because I won't. I won't be in the background, not singing. I am a star."

Shelby tried not to smile at Rachel's mini-rant. It was kind of cute, but she could see how it could get annoying.

"Nothing that drastic. No solo at Regionals, and other solos at competitions if you're still a probationary member. No singing at every glee meeting."

"What else?"

"Nothing. Oh, wait. Sugar has to sing a solo at a meeting before you can. Don't ask. That girl pays for the Troubletones; she can have a solo during a meeting if she wants it and everyone will clap politely. But that need you have to be a star, they have it too, and it wouldn't be fair to let you join the Troubletones and have all the solos. They've earned it, and the conditions everyone agreed on is just their way of protecting themselves."

Shelby raised an eyebrow as she stared at her biological daughter. "And from what I've heard, you've done some suspicious things to protect yourself too."

Rachel blushed slightly. "I have no idea what you've talking about."

"Does the name Sunshine ring a bell?"

Rachel hid her face in her hands. "I apologised for it."

"I'm sure you did and I'll let you in on a little secret. People have done a lot worse for roles in Broadway shows. But those wannabes in New York aren't as talented as you, so I guess they have to resort to underhanded methods.."

Rachel smiled slightly. "It's not as bad as I thought it'd be. The conditions I mean. But it's still restricting, and I don't know if I can do that. There was a Rachel Berry before New Directions, and there will be a Rachel Berry after New Directions."

"I know there will be. I know you aren't defined by a show choir." Shelby said, and she couldn't quite hide the pride in her voice. "But there's more to glee than singing and dancing and you know that. The decision is yours, and I'm not going to lie and say that I don't have a preference. Because I do, I want you there; and as long as you follow the conditions, so does everyone else. Everyone voted you in, Rachel."

"That's …"

"Yeah."

Shelby Corcoran - 6

William Schuester – 5

Will could play on Rachel's insecurities all he wanted (okay, he couldn't really, because Shelby was pretty sure she'd go apeshit if he did it again) but she would fight to have Rachel believe that people loved her and appreciated her. She had friends and Shelby would not let her forget that. It was clear that Will's plan was falling apart; there was a spark in Rachel's eyes that she had lacked before. She sat straighter, her head tilted up slightly.

They were silent for a moment before Rachel spoke up.

"It's not as bad as I thought it would be."

"I think we've covered this."

"No, I mean _this._" Rachel waved a hand between them. "Having you here. Talking. I thought it would be hard, that you'd hurt me again. But you're different now. I can see that."

"I'm glad. I was a selfish bitch then. I wanted a daughter, and I thought that you were what I needed. But you weren't. I needed to be a mother, and having a daughter doesn't automatically make you a mother. But I am one now, and whether I have one daughter or two is up to you."

"I'm not sure what to say."

Shelby gently squeezed Rachel's shoulder. "That's okay."

She hoped down from the stage and held a hand out to help Rachel down.

"We don't need to figure it all out now." She said as she walked Rachel out of the auditorium.

/-/-/-/-/-/

**Author's note 2: So, assignments are over, but exams are in three weeks (but then I have a three week breaks, yay). So updates are still slightly iffy. I should be okay though. I'm also spending so writing time on another story. This story won't be uploaded until it's finished though(which I prefer to do, and SCLBO was originally a one-shot) and it looks like it's going to be a long one.**

**manatees-have-thick-skin** : A woman after my own heart. :D I'm glad you're enjoying the Will/Finn hating. Cause I am, I really am.

**Cissy Black Malfoy**: I stopped watching for about two months after Hold on to Sixteen, and only started watching again because it started to air in my country and my mum watches it. She also dislikes Finn and Will. And she really dislikes Rory, mostly for his hair.

I think you'll be fine with the Quinn thing. I have a plan for her and Shelby. It's very plan-y.

**OTHangels**: Oh shucks. :P

troubletones fan : Liking the name. :P I've always wanted Quinn to get real help. Rachel talking to her a hallway isn't quite what she needs.

**mixtapesandcellmates**: I think Rachel should have listened to Quinn about everything when Quinn actually giving advice and not just being mean.

**MusicFlowsWithin****, ****MaryPamPretzels**, and Felicia : I'm glad you're enjoying the story, and I hopre you keep enjoying it.

**aglee123** :Sorry I haven't gotten around to reading your story yet, but it's on the cards.

Karissa : I have to say that I disagree and think that the Troubletones could get to Nationals without Rachel. But I do agree that she can't just be pushed to the back. You'll just have to wait and see what happens. :P


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee or anything associated with it. Sadly, or this would be canon. :P

To say Shelby was anxious about the Troubletones meeting that day would be a slight understatement. Mike, Tina and Rachel hadn't gotten back to her about their decisions about joining, so she would be learning at the same time as the rest of the Troubletones. But she had other things to be worried about too. Shelby had approached Figgins about Finn trying to buy out the Cheerios. Figgins had, not too surprisingly said there was nothing he could do. Which was why Shelby had asked Mr. Motta if he could meet with her before the Christmas break when their next meeting was scheduled. Mr. Motta made a point to have regular meetings with Shelby to make sure that Sugar was happy with her show choir (his words not Shelby's)

It seemed, however, that Mr. Motta was running late, and that never happened. Shelby stood up from the chair opposite Figgins and left the office.

"I'll be right back."

It didn't take Shelby long to find Mr. Motta. He had apparently been walking past the choir room while the New Directions were playing and had listened to the end of their performance. Which was when Will had started a conversation with him.

"Yeah, I led the New Directions to Nationals last year. It was amazing. They did so well."

Mr. Motta smiled happily. Many would think that he just wanted his daughter to be happy, and while that was true, Shelby knew that he had a keen interest in the arts.

"They sound amazing. You've done a good job."

"It's too bad we lost at Sectionals this year. Our star singer was suspended for some silly reason, and now Shelby's not allowing any of them to join the Troubletones."

Shelby watched as Mr. Motta frowned deeply. "That's not right; every child should be given the chance to perform if they want to."

William was trying to turn Mr. Motta against her.

Shelby Corcoran – 6

William Schuester – 6

Shelby stepped forward, a show smile firmly in place.

"Mr. Motta, it's good to see you again. I hate to interrupt your conversation, but we have a lot to go over and I know you need to get back to the office by three."

Mr. Motta nodded. "Of course, and I have something else I want to discuss with you too."

Shelby tried not to sigh. William was just causing her more problems. Mr. Motta held his hand out to Will.

"It was nice to meet you William. Maybe we can talk another time."

"I'd like that Mr. Motta."

Shelby walked quietly back to Figgins' office, Mr. Motta at her side. Mr. Motta, ever the gentle man opened the door for Shelby, and closed it behind her.

"Alright, let's get this meeting started. Firstly, Shelby, congratulations on winning Sectionals. I would have liked to have seen my daughter performing more, but despite what I tell her, I know she can't sing all too well."

"Thank you. Sugar's getting better though, and she helped at Sectionals more than just singing in the background. She helped to choreograph, as well."

Mr. Motta grinned. It had always been apparent to Shelby that he loved his daughter. Just as apparent that he spoiled her.

"I know she's been getting better. You're the first vocal coach she's had that she listened to."

"I don't think that's me so much as it's the girls."

"Sugar does speak quite highly of them."

"They're amazing girls."

"Okay," Said Mr. Motta clapping his hands together. "Let's get this meeting started."

Figgins, Shelby and Mr. Motta spent a long time going over the Troubletones' budget. Mr. Motta was more than happy to pay for the Troubletones as long as Sugar was in the group, and Figgins was really happy with that as he would be saving all the money that normally got assigned to Glee club. But Shelby negotiated with both of them, and by the end of it, Mr. Motta was happily signing over a cheque for approximately half (it was actually a little more than what they had agreed on) of the cost for the Troubletones to operate for a year with a promise to write another cheque for the same amount for the next five years. Figgins wasn't particularly happy that he would have to spend money on the Troubletones, but he knew that it would a save him more money overall.

"If that's all…" Figgins said, while getting ready to stand up.

"It's not actually; I'd like to talk to you about Finn's behaviour again."

Figgins groaned. "Shelby, we've been over this, there is nothing I can do."

"I disagree. I had both Coach Sylvester, and Coach Beiste write testimonies to what they would do if it was their team that had been compromised."

Mr. Motta frowned deeply. "What's this about?"

Shelby explained what Finn had done, along with what Figgins had refused to do while Figgins read through the testimonies (mainly to make himself busy, Mr. Motta was giving him a disapproving look).

"Not punishing this boy is hardly fair, Principal Figgins. Especially considering that he was given a chance to try out fairly. I see what Mr. Schuester was telling me about Shelby rejecting those who wanted to join was misconstrued."

"What would you have me do? Expel Mr. Hudson like Sue suggested?"

"I think we can both agree that I'm not Sue, and I won't demand that of you. But I do want to see him punished. As long as I've been here, which I will admit isn't as long as you or any other teacher, I've never seen Finn punished for anything, and there are several times when he's deserved it. I don't want you to expel the boy, and he's already lost all the money he used to bribe the Cheerios with, so I just want him to have a few detentions. Three weeks worth of detentions; after school when he doesn't have football would be a fair punishment, and it's even Coach Beiste's recommended punishment."

Figgins sighed deeply, William was not going to like this (he had given up trying to avoid being in the middle of Shelby and Will's feud) but Shelby was right, it was fair. And Mr. Motta was glaring at him, which was actually pretty scary.

"Okay, he'll be punished."

Shelby smiled. "Good. I believe that is all. Mr. Motta, please allow me to walk you out."

Mr. Motta nodded and stood, opening the door once again for Shelby.

"Good day, Principle Figgins. I look forward to supporting McKinley again."

He shut the door behind Shelby and followed her down the hallway.

"Did you want to say something, Shelby?"

"No, but I suspect you do."

"You're right. What Mr. Schuester was saying…?"

"Was misconstrued. Everyone in the school was given the right to audition, and once auditions were over everyone in the Troubletones was voted on. Those accepted were accepted by everyone in the Troubletones, and it wasn't just on singing ability."

"What else was judged?"

"Compatibility, mostly. Some of the people who auditioned have a, shall we say spotted history with current members. We are a show choir, and we want to win at Regionals and then Nationals, but the girls want to enjoy themselves while they do it. The Troubletones became a sort of safe haven for some of them after certain life events."

Mr. Motta nodded thoughtfully. "I understand. It's the same in business. Conflict makes a team less efficient."

"Also, William Schuester was bullshitting you. He says a lot of good things, like everyone should have a chance to perform, but he's still the one who told your daughter that she couldn't join New Directions. I'll be honest with you Mr. Motta, William seems to think there's a war between the New Directions and the Troubletones, or at least William believes that the two of us have some sort of rivalry. But there isn't. I'm sorry he dragged you into it, because truthfully, some of my actions have probably provoked him."

They stopped as they stepped through the doors that lead to the car park.

"I'm happy with what you've done, Shelby. Sugar is happy, and that's all I can really ask for, false moral guidance aside." He grinned to show he was making fun of himself.

"However, if you don't mind me asking, _why_ isn't there some sort of rivalry between you and Mr. Schuester?"

"I've been in competition with a lot of people in my life, and it's only recently that I've realized that there really isn't any point to most of it. It's not worth it to have a rivalry with William. I would have happily supported the New Directions and played fair; I have no reason not to. But William seems to be of the mind that I hate him and that I am actively trying to destroy his life. Neither is true, but you can't change some people's minds. I do not have a rivalry with William, Mr. Motta, simply because I do not want to."

"You're the bigger person here Shelby. Good luck with that, I don't think I could do it."

"I have a good reason."

Mr. Motta smiled again as they shook hands.

"I'll see you at our next meeting. I'm looking forward to Regionals."

"Goodbye, Mr. Motta."

Shelby watched as Mr. Motta got in her car and drove away. One problem down, one nerve-racking meeting to go.

/-/-/-/-/-/

Troubletones practice had started, and the only new person to turn up was Quinn. Quinn hadn't been met particularly well, but it wasn't exactly a bad welcome either. Sugar had glared at her and told Quinn that she was the better singer (not Aspergers). Mercedes had smiled slightly, and the Cheerios had pretty much just ignored her. Quinn wouldn't talk to Santana, but she couldn't refuse the hug Brittany engulfed her in and subsequently had to accept the hug from Santana because Brittany still had her firmly pressed to her body.

Ten minutes went by without anyone else joining them, so Shelby had the girls work on a few vocal warm ups and stretches. Brittany had her leg in the air, resting on Quinn's shoulder when Will marched into the room with Finn close behind him.

"You did this!"

Shelby barely looked up from the piano. "Probably, I always seem to. If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is it that I did this time?"

"You should know."

"Humour me, please."

"You somehow made Figgins give Finn three weeks worth of after school detentions."

"That's not true." Shelby said with a smirk. "I got Principal Figgins to give Finn three weeks worth of after school detentions excluding the days he has football."

The Troubletones cheered and clapped.

"Serves you right Finnocence. I would have done worse."

"What Santana is trying to say," Shelby cut in quickly before another insult war could break out between Santana and Finn. "is that it is really the least he should have expected after he tried to manipulate and interfere with the Troubletones aduditions."

Finn screwed up his face in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the bribes, Finn. Do you recall paying several girls to vote for who you specified?"

There was a shocked gasp from the hallway, and Finn spun around to find Rachel, Tina and Mike watching everything.

"Did you really Finn?"

"No!"

"Yes you did." One of the Cheerios said loudly.

"Well, I…" Finn looked between the Troubletones and Rachel. "I had to. They weren't going to let anyone in! I mean, they didn't let you in, and I knew they wouldn't."

"I'll have you know, Finn Hudson, "Rachel said sharply. "that you did not 'have to'. The only person here who wasn't accepted from New Directions was _you_."

Finn scoffed. "Like they'd let you join. They all hate you Rachel."

"I'll have you know that I was voted in unanimously, and until now I was going to refuse the kind offer. But now I believe that it would be beneficial to join and staying with the New Directions is only going to leave me with people who don't believe I'm good enough."

She stormed past Finn and into the far corner of the room. Turning around she crossed her arms and scowled dramatically towards Finn and Will. Finn made a move to go to her but was met by a wall of bodies.

"You heard the lady, Finnept. She's one of us now, and we look after our own." Santana spat.

Mercedes took half a step forward. "We were practicing when you arrived; we'd appreciate getting back to that. So … if you could leave?"

"This isn't over."

Shelby sighed, still sitting at the piano. "Yes it is William. Whatever you plan was to influence Mr. Motta, it failed. I believe he wasn't aware that you were the reason Sugar asked for her own show choir. I'm sorry to say, but New Directions isn't going to Regionals, the Troubletones are. What else is there to fight over? I never wanted to fight you, and I certainly never wanted this arch nemesis thing you've created between us. Please just leave."

Will ran a hand through his hair, but left silently.

Shelby Corcoran – 7

William Schuester – 6

"Rachel, I want …"

"Go, Finn. I don't want to talk to you right now."

Finn left, though not nearly as quietly as Will. He kicked the door shut behind him. Almost immediately after the door opened again, and Tina and Mike entered.

"I know we're late, but are we too late to join?" Tina asked.

Shelby sighed deeply. "After that display, I'd welcome any positive change. Welcome to the Troubletones. Now, warm ups."

/-/-/-/-/

**mixtapesandcellmates**: I've always thought that the one consistent thing about Santana's character was her insults, which aren't always mature, but are always very intelligent, and I wanted to convert that into her actions, because Glee sure doesn't. I too greatly dislike Finn, so you can expect bad things for him.

**manatees-have-thick-skin**: Mike and Sam really are sweeties. :) I like them, and Dave, and that's pretty much all the males I like.

**Luthiem Vardamir**: Well, it was reported that they intended to have Shelby enter again, butt hat failed. Just like the Disney episode, which would have been awesome.

Quinn always been a bit of a loaded gun. Dianna has that 'smile sweetly while I stare at you with crazy eyes' look down pat. It's Glee, they were never going to deal with anything serious to do with not Finn, I mean, a females character, I mean Quinn, Rachel and Shelby.

And as for a Finchel break up, we'll see.

**Rtarara**: I'm glad you liked it. I always wanted to actually give their relationship some credit.

**AceEclipse**: That's what happens when I write a one shot that everyone tells me to continue. :P Luckily I have updated. I hope you enjoyed it.

**OTHangels**: Thanks. :D

**MusicFlowsWithin**: That's cause Finn and Will suck. :P Thanks for reading.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee. I would like to though.

**Author's Note: **Sorry for this being late, but like I said earlier, I had exams and study. It was worth it though, because I've gotten some really good marks this semester. But at least you got a slightly long chapter, and I think it's pretty funny.

**Author's Note 2: **I've also been re-editing my previous chapters. Not changing much except grammar and sentence structure. The only thing plot wise that I've changed is that now Santana is actually in Schuester's Spanish class, she just almost never goes to class.

**Author's Note 3:** Things should be speeding up plot wise now, so if there's anything in the series you'd like me to spend a little time on, tell me. :)

**Chapter Nine**

The first 'new' Troubletones meeting had been awkward to say the least. Rachel was still clearly upset with Finn (Shelby was silently cheering at that because Rachel deserved so much better) and Quinn was still ignoring pretty much everyone. After the warm ups not much else was done, so Shelby had been forced to end the meeting early on the stipulation that they have a quick meeting as soon as possible. Everyone eagerly left, agreeing to meet at lunch the next day.

Shelby started the meeting as soon as everyone arrived after eating their lunch. Shelby explained the request Sue had made for the Troubletones to sing at the homeless shelter. There had been the obvious questions about why the Cheerios didn't do it (Shelby had heard more and more about the image the Cheerios portrayed over the past weeks, the Cheerios were the default topic of conversation when Sue talked at Shelby) and what Sue wanted from them as well as a few conditions (one of which was 'no cannons', and Shelby didn't even bother asking) but eventually the Troubletones agreed.

Everyone was starting to get ready to leave.

"There's one more thing." Shelby said loudly to cut over a few conversations. "Because of the new additions to our team, and past rivalries, to facilitate a smooth transition everyone will be participating in a team building weekend these holidays."

"Miss C, you can't do that!"

"We _do _things over the weekends."

"What if we already have plans?"

"Oh, hell no! You're not interrupting my 'me' time."

"Yay! Can it be in the first week? Daddy has to fly to Chicago for work and I hate our housekeeper."

"Cheerios practice on Saturdays even in the holidays."

"So we have to?"

Shelby held up a hand to stop and protests. "Yes, it is compulsory, but I promise it's not going to be one of those workshops where you fall back and people catch you. I've also already organized this with your parents, so I know you're not busy. Don't try to come up with any excuses. Coach Sylvester has moved the weekend practice to later in the week. This is happening, so stop complaining. Also, Sugar it is the weekend your father is gone, we'll be meeting at your house. I've already cleared it with Mr. Motta."

"You're really planned this out, haven't you?" Asked Santana sarcastically.

"I led a choir to Nationals four years in a row. I picked up a few things along the way."

Santana rolled her eyes, but smiled. "Whatever. I guess you'll see us during the holidays. It'll give you something to look forward to."

/-/-/-/-/

Helping out at the homeless shelter had been surprisingly fun, though there had been a slight hiccup when one of the homeless men kept hitting on Brittany, which then led to Santana going 'all Lima Heights'. No one got kicked out because it was Christmas, but it was a close thing. Sue didn't do much in the way of helping; instead she gave herself the role of 'supervisor' and watched everyone else do the work, but everyone had expected that.

What Shelby hadn't expected was the card containing a photo of the original Troubletones and the small silver musical note on a chain she was given at the end of the night. She could have cried, but settled instead for hugging all the girls. She put the necklace on straight away, and decided then and there that she was never taking it off.

/-/-/-/-/

Shelby arrived at Mr. Motta's house a few minutes before he was due to leave for the airport. He greeted her briefly before having the housemaid give her the grand tour. By the time it was finished, Mr. Motta had left, and Sugar was waiting excitedly in the lounge.

"I've never had a sleepover before. We always use to move around too much for me to make proper friends to invite to a sleepover. I can't wait."

Sugar squealed and ran up stairs, yelling something about doing her hair. The rest of the Troubletones would arrive in an hour, but part of Shelby's deal with Mr. Motta to use his house included Shelby coming over earlier so that someone could keep Sugar company before the Troubletones arrived. It suited Shelby fine, and it meant that everything could be set up on time. A few minutes later Shelby answered a knock on the door.

"Hey, Holly. Come in."

"If this is your house, I think I might become a vocal coach."

Shelby chuckled and picked up a few of the bags Holly had brought with her.

"No, I wish this was my house. I don't earn nearly enough. This is Mr. Motta's house."

"The one who hired you? He's got a daughter, right?"

"Yeah, her name is Sugar. She's upstairs doing … something. I don't always know with her. Come on, I'll show you to the lounge and your room. The girls can all sleep in the lounge, but Mr. Motta had a spare room made up for you."

"I've got some ice cream for the freezer."

"Freezer first, then."

Holly grinned and followed Shelby. "Didn't want Brittany and Santana to have a room to escape to?"

"Basically. I don't think it will stop them, but it looks more responsible."

Shelby pushed the ice cream deep into the freezer and headed towards the lounge. Holly dropped her stuff on the floor of the lounge and laughed.

"Oh, I don't think anything would stop those two, particularly considering that they're now officially together. I can't tell you how many times I walked in on the two of them when I subbed at McKinley. And I wasn't even there that long."

Shelby dropped the bags she was carrying and sat down.

"I know what you mean. I'm just glad that I made my office off-limits early on. That and I keep the door locked unless I'm inside."

"Good idea."

"Thank you." Shelby pulled Holly onto the couch next to her. "It's nice to have you around, I've missed seeing you."

"I doubt you've missed being thrown out of bars because of me."

"Holly, I haven't been in a bar for years. Now, let's get you settled into your room, and then we can go over the schedule for the weekend."

Shelby led Holly upstairs with her bags and to the spare room the house keeper had pointed out.

"Damn." Holly said in awe. "This room is huge. I might as well be at the Ritz. What does Mr. Motta even do?"

"I actually have no idea."

Shelby helped Holly sort through her bags, separating things for the teamwork exercises from Holly's personal possessions. They re-bagged everything Holly said she'd need for that afternoon, and moved back downstairs. Sugar was still upstairs, blasting music from her room which echoed through the whole second floor.

"So, you're starting with the mascot bear?"

"Yeah, I worked out a deal with the company to make a bunch of smaller replicas of whatever bear they make."

"That reminds me. " Shelby said, taking her wallet out of her pocket. "I got this in the mail a few days ago from Mr. Motta." She handed a credit card over. "For expenses and stuff."

"That guy is loaded."

"Yeah. The girls will be here soon, you ready?"

"Of course. I was born ready."

"Did you have to say that? Now I know something is going to go wrong."

Holly hit Shelby lightly. "Lies. Stop tarnishing my good name."

/-/-/-/-/

Thankfully nothing particularly bad happened on the first day. Everyone arrived almost at once. The Cheerios came in two different cars, while Tina, Mercedes, Rachel and Mike all came together. Quinn arrived on her own and Santana and Brittany were the last to arrive. Brittany had greeted Holly with a hug, and all those that had been in New Directions seemed genuinely happy to see her again, and were very excited to find out that she would be running their teamwork weekend. They hadn't been nearly as enthused when Holly insisted they play name games for a good half an hour so she could get to know all the girls she hadn't met yet.

Brittany and Sugar had been overjoyed when they realized that they were heading out to Build-A-Bear to make a Troubletones mascot. Santana had been more excited to find out that Shelby would pick up dinner from Breadstix on the way home. They ordered before they left, and Shelby was pretty sure that she heard someone groan at Santana's voice when she started yelling about breadsticks. They planned to have an early dinner, so that everyone would have room for sundae making. Holly swore on ice cream for bonding.

Everyone piled into one of two cars (Holly had hired a mini van) except for Shelby. Shelby took her own car home to check on Beth before meeting the Troubletones at the mall. The whole weekend was meant to be run by Holly, not Shelby, so Shelby would be going home quite a bit over the weekend. Walking into the Build-A-Bear shop, Shelby let out a groan.

Brittany, Mercedes and Sugar were arguing over something to do with the mascot, while Santana was hiding in another part of the shop with Tina and Rachel, apparently debating which bear accessory they preferred if their pointing was any indication. Mike stood near them, looking through the little leather jackets and showing one to Tina every now and again when he found one that he particularly liked. Quinn and the rest of the Cheerios were scattered around the shop looking at different things. Holly was waiting at the counter, grinning madly.

"Holly, what is going on?"

"Well, everyone agreed on the basic clothing ideas really quickly, after everyone brought back their preferences. Then Sugar, Brittany and Mercedes started arguing about which bow the mascot should wear."

Brittany was waving a bright green bow around, Mercedes was shoving a leopard print in both Brittany's and Sugar's faces while Sugar pouted, her hot pink bow thrust out in front of her.

"I understand why the rest of them ran away, but I don't see why you haven't intervened."

"Well, it's kind of funny to watch, but I'm waiting for them to reach some sort of agreement on their own."

"You realize that Mercedes is one of the most stubborn people in the world, Sugar is incredibly entitled and thinks everything she decides is the best, and that Brittany is …"

Shelby looked closely at Brittany. There was a slightly smile across her lips.

"Brittany is pretending to be annoyed." Holly cut in.

"I was going to say that Brittany thinks she's the most fashionable teenager in existence, and that she can often get stuck on an idea, but you're right."

"She _is_ incredibly fashionable."

"Agreed. Apparently she was in a magazine for it or something."

"Oh, look!" Holly said excitedly. "They've decided to look at other bows. Time for me to step in."

Holly approached the three girls and presented a shiny lime green and pink bow with leopard spots."

"Sugar squealed and grabbed the bow, sticking it on the bear's head.

"Perfect!"

"I think we're done here. Let me just pay and we'll go back to the mansion that Sugar calls a house. Could you girls round up everyone else?"

Holly carried the large bear back to the counter and sat it next to Shelby.

"Do you like it?"

The bear was quite big, probably coming up to Shelby's knee and light brown in colour. It wore the bow Holly had found and a simple black t-shirt with a light turquoise jacket. It had several studs in the shape of musical notes pressed though its ears and a matching bracelet around one wrist. The back of the jacket had been embroidered with 'The Troubletones' in black lettering, thanks to the shop having brought an embroidery machine a few months ago. Plain denim overalls were half hidden under the jacket, and Shelby suspected that they had been Santana's preferred item of clothing. She was certainly the only Troubletone that Shelby had seen in overalls. It looked some what mismatched, but everyone had agreed on it, so Shelby wasn't going to complain.

Holly paid for their mascot, and made an order for sixteen smaller bears to be delivered to everyone's house by the time they got back from the teamwork weekend. The cashier took a quick photo of the front and back of the bear at Holly's insistence for accuracy.

Once everyone was ready to go, Sugar proudly grabbed the bear and carried it out to the cars. Everyone piled back into the cars to head back to Sugar's house. Shelby followed behind them, taking a quick detour at Breadstix to pick up their dinner order. She made sure to grab the credit card off of Holly before she left though. She wasn't going to pay for that mountain of food herself. God bless rich sponsors.

The restaurant was busy. It had started to get more customers after they started taking phone orders. According to Santana (Shelby had found out a lot of things about Breadstix from Santana) a new manager had been hired with a lot of big ideas to make more money. Deliveries, takeaways and phone orders were just part of that.

Shelby had walked up to the pick up area before she noticed that Will was standing next to the front desk, reserving a table for two at eight for Mr. Hudson (so Shelby was eavesdropping, who didn't?) . A waiter tapped her shoulder.

"You're order is ready, Miss."

"Thank you. Do you think I could have some help carrying it?"

"Sure."

The waiter picked up several of the bags, and Shelby managed with the rest. She unlocked her car and loaded all the food in.

"You've got quite a bit of food their, Miss. Catering for a few people?"

"You have no idea. Try sixteen teenagers and two adults. Was there an order of breadsticks in there?"

The waiter scratched his head, his brow furrowed in thought. "I don't think so. We don't normally serve breadsticks with our takeaway meals."

Shelby sighed and locked her car. "Well, I better get some. I'm pretty sure I'd be murdered if I went back without any."

"I guess one of your guests really likes breadsticks?"

"You're new, aren't you?"

The waiter blushed. "Yeah, I started a few days ago. How did you know?"

"Because you wouldn't be asking that question if you had served Santana Lopez."

"She's real? I thought that was just a story they made up to scare the new guy. Did she really get a manager fired?"

Shelby shrugged and held the door open for the waiter. "Probably. I've never actually been here while she was, but I've seen her get protective about her breadsticks when she brought the leftovers to school the next day."

The waiter nodded and rushed off to find some breadsticks. Will was just leaving as he returned.

"I got two extra orders of breadsticks for you."

"Thank you. I hope you have a good night." Shelby said distractedly.

"You too."

Shelby followed Will out, and listened as he pulled out his phone.

"Hey, Finn. Something came up for Emma and I and we had to cancel on our date at Breadstix this evening. I was wondering if you wanted the reservation. You can take Rachel, or something. I know they have some team thing on, but I'm sure she'd rather go out with you. Who cares about it? Sweet. It's at eight. I'll call them up and change the reservation to be under your name. Have a good holiday Finn."

Will stood outside his car, and Shelby could have shot herself. They were parked next to each other. She unlocked her car, and dropped the breadsticks in the back with all the other food. Will still hadn't noticed Shelby when she spoke up.

"I don't get it, Will. Why are you trying to sabotage the Troubletones' teambuilding weekend?"

"Shelby? Fancy seeing you hear. But I have no idea what you're going on about."

Shelby sighed. "You know what? Forget it. I've got a show choir to get back to. They need practice if they're ever going to win Regionals. Too bad New Directions don't have that chance."

Shelby got in her car, slamming the door and driving off before Will could respond. The bastard was trying to segregate her team with the only tool he seemed to have; Finn. Screw them.

Shelby Corcoran – 7

William Schuester – 7

Shelby arrived at Sugar's and was met by a few of the Cheerios. They helped Shelby carry the bags inside and lay everything out on the dining table. Santana was there a second later, searching for breadsticks. Everyone else filed into the dining room and grabbed their meals.

"Shelby, can I talk to you for a second?" Rachel asked quietly.

Shelby nodded and followed Rachel into the lounge.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"I know that this weekend is compulsory, but do you think I could leave for a few hours?"

"Rachel, take a seat."

They sat down on opposite sides of the couch.

"The Troubletones are a different sort of show choir than you're use to dealing with. I am the coach and teacher supervision for the Troubletones, and I do have some sort of authority because I have more experience with show choirs than, well, everyone at McKinley to be honest, but I'm not the leader. My point is that you don't have to ask me if you want to have a few hours away. You need to go back in that room and ask your team members. You're a Troubletone now, Rachel. That means we'll look out for you, but you need to do the same. So, go ask."

Rachel nodded, and joined the rest of the Troubletones in the dining room.

"If I could have your attention, please. I would like your permission to excuse myself for a few hours from our team building weekend this evening. I …"

"Really, Berry? You're going to blow us off for the Green Giant?" Santana snapped. "Not cool. There are a million places I'd rather be than here, but what do you know? Here I am, along with every other member of this team."

"Santana's right." Mercedes said. "We're a team. That's the point of this weekend, and you want to leave, to what? Go out with Finn?"

"I'd put money on that." Brittany said quickly.

Santana snorted. "I would too. Rachel, what you need to realize is that there is more to life than Finn. Be independent for once. Tell him that, no, you can't go to dinner, because you're busy and have had this planned for weeks."

"I am independent."

Brittany shook her head. "No you're … Finndependent. Did I do that right?"

Santana grinned proudly at Brittany. "Yeah, babe. That was awesome."

"Brittany!" Rachel said loudly.

"But, whatever Berry." Santana said, interrupting Rachel. "At the end of the day, it's your choice. Mercedes is right though. If you leave, I think you've missed the whole idea of teamwork."

Rachel opened her mouth for a second before storming out. Shelby chewed her lip nervously. The rest of the Troubletones were silent.

"Should someone go after her?" Holly asked in a stage whisper.

Quinn shook her head "No. Rachel just needs to think and come to a decision."

Half an hour later, after pretty much everyone else had finished eating; Rachel came back into the dining room.

"I'm sorry for before. This is a Troubletones weekend, and it's going to stay that way. I guess I just need to learn what a Troubletone is."

Sugar smiled. "It's awesome, pure awesome."

Shelby Corcoran – 8

William Schuester – 7

Will could try all her wanted to separate the Troubletones, but he'd fail. Because even their newest members realized that they had something good.

/-/-/-/-/

**Rtarara**– Strangely, Finn annoys me more than Artie does now days. I think it's because Artie had done nothing in the whole of season three. Finn's face irks me too.

**OTHangels** – I'm glad. :D

**mixtapesandcellmates**– I miss single Rachel too. She was scary focused on everything. I hope this chapter made you feel good then. Not a break up, but not a happy romance either. Also, You're my first 100th review. Yay! :D

**manatees-have-thick-skin** – I really like Mr. Motta. I have this whole back story in my head about his and Sugar's life that I should really put into the story.

**LuvtheJEm** – Angles? I think that's probably what it would take to get Finn a detention on Glee. *le sigh* As you can see, Schuester can't keep his nose out of anything. Silly man. Shelby is so much cooler than him.

**Luthiem Vardamir** – I hate Finn's chosen one status too. Speaking of Nationals, I'm actually watching that episode tonight, as New Zealand is slow in TV land. Should be interesting… or something. I'm leaning towards 'something'. I really would have adored seeing Shelby again, but I was looking forward to seeing Anne Hathaway too.

**PS** – I love all you reviewers. I can't believe I have over 100 reviews. I want to hug all of you guys!


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee. I would like to though.

**Author's Note: **I've written a few new stories while I've been away because I got a small writer's block for this story. Luckily I beat it, and here's an update. But have a look at my new stories if you feel like it. They're a little different to my usual, but I still like them.

**Author's Note 2:** Santana's views on Ohio aren't mine. I've never been there, but I've been told it's not as bad as Glee portrays it to be, but this is the Glee universe where apparently everyone in Ohio except the Glee club are bigots (and even then some of them...), so meh. No offense intended and what not.

**Author's Note 3:** Things should be speeding up plot wise now, so if there's anything in the series you'd like me to spend a little time on, tell me. :)

**Author's Note 4:** Officially over 30,000 words! Go me!

**Author's Note 5: **I'm answering pretty much all questions you have over on my Tumblr (link in my profile, but my name is Ryzlin) over the next few days, so feel free to ask me anything. Ask about my stories, my views on things, myself. Whatever you want.

**/-/-/-/-/**

Shelby spent Saturday night and Sunday at home. She drove over to Sugar's house on Monday morning to find all of the Troubletones, except for Santana and Brittany, asleep in the lounge. Shelby hadn't really expected them to stay in the same room as everyone else overnight but she had hoped. There was the possibility that they had gotten thrown out by the other Troubletones for excessive PDA, but it seemed more likely that they had snuck out during the night to crash in one of the many spare bedrooms that the house boasted. Shelby hoped they weren't in Mr. Motta's room. Maybe she should have just let them have a room from the get-go.

Mr. Motta would be back by three that afternoon, which meant that everyone had to be gone, and the house had to be clean (the housekeeper had the weekend off at Sugar's insistence) before then. Luckily there were a bunch of teenage girls (and Mike) that Shelby could (and would) convince to clean up the mess. Shelby left the lounge and headed upstairs to the room Holly had been assigned on the first night.

Holly was, not so surprisingly, asleep. Holly had almost never attended the morning classes she had with Shelby when they were both at Cincinnati University unless Shelby practically dragged Holly out of her apartment. Shelby flicked the blankets off of Holly and quickly turned around. She should have expected that, it wasn't like Holly hadn't told her (many, many times) that she slept naked. This wasn't even the first time Shelby had pulled the covers off of a naked Holly. At least it wasn't as bad as when she had disturbed Holly and one of her one-night-stands.

"Jesus Christ, Shelby! What is your problem?"

Shelby glanced back at Holly and regretfully covered her eyes with a hand. She shouldn't have looked; she did not need a full frontal view of Holly's assets. Not that it was a first, there had been that time Holly had gotten so drunk at a strip club (Holly's idea) and decided to join the strippers on stage.

"Put some clothes on."

"Fuck off. You'd think you'd be use to seeing my ass."

"You think I'd be used to you being an ass. Get dressed or I won't make you coffee and breakfast."

Holly grumbled for a second before relenting. "Okay."

Shelby made her way back downstairs to the kitchen. She started the coffee maker, making as much coffee as she physically could. She did have a horde of teenagers to energize. Holly thumped down the stairs and grabbed at the first mug she found. Shelby gently took it off her and filled it with coffee.

"Just the way you like it."

Holly grunted. "I want pancakes."

"Yes, your Majesty."

Holly just smirked as Shelby started to make pancakes and fry bacon and eggs. She made a special set of vegan pancakes in another pan for Rachel. It was a good thing that Holly had taken everyone out on a grocery trip yesterday. Slowly, the smell of food woke everyone in the lounge. Quinn was first, and had eaten half a packet of bacon and was on to her second cup of coffee before anyone else had stumbled into the kitchen. Eventually everyone but Santana and Brittany was situated around the kitchen and dining room eating. Shelby glanced at the roof. She really didn't want to go looking for them. Seeing Holly's naked ass was enough for one day.

"Make chocolate chip pancakes."

Shelby turned to Quinn.

"Excuse me?"

"Brittany has a sixth sense when it comes to chocolate chip pancakes. She'll be down as soon as they're ready, and where Brittany goes, Santana goes."

Shelby shrugged and started a new mix of batter, adding plenty of chocolate chips. Just as Quinn had predicted, Brittany arrived with a sleepy Santana the second Shelby slid the last chocolate chip pancake onto a plate. Shelby wondered if that would make them get to Troubletones practice faster. It could come in especially useful when they had their free period straight before practice.

Everyone helped to tidy up after they ate and had showers. The Motta household had five bathrooms, and Shelby couldn't have been happier about that. The Cheerios searched the house for any rubbish and came back with several plastic bags full (Shelby didn't even want to know how they had made that much of a mess). Quinn, Brittany and Mike washed, dried and put away the dishes while Santana stripped all the used sheets to be washed and packed away the sleeping bags Sugar had made her dad buy for 'authenticity'. According to Sugar you couldn't have a real sleepover without sleeping bags and pillow fights. Apparently there had been a pillow fight because one of the rubbish bags was full of down. Sugar and Tina did several loads of washing (mainly focusing on Tina teaching Sugar how to work a washing machine) that they then got the others to put out to dry. Rachel traveled up and down the three flights of stairs to vacuum every single inch of the house (except Mr. Motta's room), even the rooms no one had set a foot in. Once everything was clean and tidy and everyone had packed up their belongings, Holly called everyone into the lounge to start a sharing circle.

"So, now that we've all been forced to be in each other's company for a few days, I think it's time for a sharing circle. You can say anything you want, as long as it's something that almost no one knows. Who wants to go first?"

No one spoke up. Holly sighed.

"Me then, I guess. When I first went to university I started writing a series of novels that got publish shortly after I started teaching. I have six novels under a pen name, which I will not give you, no matter how much you ask as they're all erotica."

"Seriously?" Said Santana.

"Seriously, it made me a nice amount of money too."

Brittany grinned. "That is so cool. San, you should write porn."

"I'll think about it, Britt."

They continued around the circle. Most of the Cheerios shared small items about their appearance ("It's all natural, I just tell everyone it's a weave" and "I'm actually a blonde/brunette/red head").

Shelby talked about how it took her six years of waitressing before she got anywhere on Broadway, and even then it wasn't for a particularly long time.

Mike admitted that he often feels horrible about the fact that he's going to school for dancing when his mother didn't.

Tina admitted that she really, really wanted a solo and she didn't want it next year when everyone had left; she wanted it now while all her friends could listen to her.

Rachel quietly told them that she was seriously considering calling a break on her relationship with Finn, because the boy she fell in love with was changing into someone she didn't know. Santana put her hand put for a high five and Rachel tentatively slapped her hand against Santana's.

Quinn quietly admitted that she had been very happy when she found out that her mother had kicked her father out. Brittany stuck her fingers in her mouth and let out a loud whistle, yelling "Go Mama Fabray!"

Santana sighed deeply before telling them that she wasn't going to sue Reggie Salazar, which was met with a few surprised gasps and a loud 'I was looking forward to seeing him squirm in court' from Sugar. Once it was quiet again, Santana explained.

"I know that I have the grounds to sue his ass off, and it's been a tough decision, but I don't want to drag this out. As soon as I can, I'm getting out of Lima and moving somewhere else. I don't want to have to come back for court cases. I want to come back to show everyone how far I've come, and there was always the possibility that I'd get a jury full of bigoted assholes. This is Ohio after all."

Brittany squeezed Santana's hand and looked towards the Troubletones.

"Sometimes I worry that I won't get out of Lima. I know I'm awesome, but … sometimes I can't help but think I might get stuck here like all the other Lima losers."

Santana squeezed Brittany's hand back and leaned in to peck her quickly on the check before whispering something that made Brittany blush and glance away with a happy grin.

Mercedes smiled at them and turned to the Troubletones.

"I guess I'm sort of the same as Brittany. I want out of Lima; I think most of us do. I want to be famous, to do big things. I just … I guess I don't know how."

There were a few token 'you'll do it's from the group and Santana gently bumped Brittany who in turn bumped into Mercedes, making all three of them smile at each other.

Sugar bounced happily, eager to share her unknown fact about herself. Her enthusiasm waned a bit. Probably, Shelby mused, because Sugar liked to talk (and she meant that in the nicest way possible; because Sugar knew when to shut up and Shelby had taught students who didn't) and didn't have many boundaries when it came to telling other people personal information. Eventually she got up and walked over to the mantle piece over the fireplace. She picked up a photo and sat back down in her place in the circle.

"This is my mother. I never really knew her. She died when I was little. Daddy doesn't like to talk about it, so I usually don't. I don't remember much about her, but I remember her singing. She was awesome; even better than I am."

The rest of the morning had a rather glum mood to it following Sugar's announcement about her mother, though Shelby did think some of it had to do with the early (for the Troubletones at least) wake up call.

Everyone had left by the time Mr. Motta arrived home, including Holly who had insisted that her and Shelby meet up once more before Holly moved on to a long term substitute job in Cleveland. Holly had only come to Lima briefly to visit everyone, and now she was moving on. Shelby knew better than most about Holly's nomadic ways. She liked to move every few years, though so far she had mostly stayed in Ohio. It would be interesting to see what would cause Holly to settle down.

Shelby shook Mr. Motta's hand when he arrived home.

"Was everything okay?" He asked while looking around the entry way.

"Well, your house is still standing."

He laughed. "That's always a good thing. I hope everything went according to plan."

"I think it did. Thank you for letting us use your house, Mr. Motta. You're a good father."

Mr. Motta looked at her slightly surprised for a second before smiling.

"Thank you Shelby. You can call me Al. If you don't mind me asking, do you have any children?"

"Yes; two daughters. I was a surrogate for my first daughter a long time ago, and my adopted daughter. She's one and a half."

"Do you have much of a relationship with your first daughter?"

"We're working on it, and it's going somewhere. We've decided to be friends."

"That's good. I'm always saddened by parents with bad relationships with their children. Do you have a partner, Shelby?"

Shelby laughed. "No. I don't even have a time to date."

"It often feels like that, doesn't it?" Al asked with an amused smile. "Being a single parent is hard, and sometimes it's really, really hard. But it's worth it."

"Yes. It is."

/-/-/-/-/

The first week back at McKinley held no particular surprises for Shelby. The kids were a little rowdy, but what did you expect with them having just come back from Christmas. She vaguely heard (though the grape vine of course) that Will had proposed to Emma in a very grand gesture that ruined a perfectly good suit in the school pool. Roz Washington hadn't been too happy about it, particularly when she found out that her synchronised swimmers had been the ones helping without her permission. Puck was still pursuing her, though he seemed to have backed off a bit (thank God) and most of his attempts at wooing included checking her out in the hallway and complimenting her when no one else was listening.

The highlight of her week had been seeing one of the Cheerios shake their head at a jock and stop Tina being covered in bright blue slushie. It probably had more to do with the sheet music Tina was looking through (it was her turn to choose a song for the week) than it being Tina. Still, it was an improvement, and one that Shelby suspected wouldn't have happened if they hadn't all been forced into the same house for three days. Forced exposure was better than nothing, though Holly assured her that everyone enjoyed themselves, and Sugar very vocally told her it was the best sleepover ever; even if she had nothing to compare it to.  
>So the first week was fine. It was the second week that things really started to fuck up.<p>

/-/-/-/-/

Rachel was late to their Monday morning Troubletones practice. It actually had a few people concerned, because Rachel was _never_ late. Practice was slightly off-kilter because no one was really focused. Even the Cheerios who didn't really care too much about Rachel wanted to know why she wasn't there.

Half way through practice Rachel arrived. She moved quickly through the room and sat down in one of the chairs. Any remarks about her lateness quickly died in their owners throats. Rachel looked worn out and seconds away from crying; like she hadn't slept all weekend. Shelby ended practice almost immediately, but before anyone could even pack up, Rachel spoke.

"He proposed to me."

Quinn was the first to speak. "What? Tell me you're joking. Tell me you said no!"

Santana shook her head and laughed in shock. "Finn proposed, like 'let's-go-get-hitched-and-get-a-house-and-maybe-a-puppy-together' proposed?"

Rachel stared down at her fingers and fidgeted.

Quinn sat down next to Rachel.

"Rachel, what did you say to him?" She asked softly.

"I said I needed to think about it."

"You can't marry him, you just … can't."

Rachel pressed the heel of her palms into her eyes. "I know I can't! But I met up with Finn to take a break and then he proposed, and I didn't know what to do. He left me alone over the weekend, but as soon as I got to school he was asking me what I had decided, and it took me all this time just to get away without really saying anything and..."

Quinn pulled Rachel into a hug. It took a few seconds, but Rachel sighed deeply and relaxed. Shelby silently gestured for everyone to leave as it was getting closer to homeroom, and they did with a few backward glances at Rachel and Quinn (some more earnest than others). When Rachel finally looked up, she was surprised to see the room nearly completely empty.

"Rachel, would you like to go home?"

Rachel looked like she was seriously considering Shelby's offer for a second, but shook her head.

"No, I have a perfect attendance record and I would like to keep that. Finn won't run me away."

Shelby smiled proudly. "Good on you."

She rummaged through her desk drawer and pulled out a key which she handed to Rachel. "Here, take this. It's the key to my office. I have a pretty full day today with Mr. Ford sick with the flu. If you feel the need to get away, you're welcome to come here."

"Thank you, Shelby." Rachel said with a small smile.

"You're welcome, Rachel."

Rachel and Quinn stood up as the first bell rung. Shelby called out as they reached her office door.

"And Rachel? If you need to talk to someone about this, I'm willing to listen. Not that you have to or anything, but, well, that's what friends do, right?"

Rachel grinned. "Yeah, that's what friends do."

/-/-/-/-/

Rachel didn't come to Shelby to discuss Finn, but she did return her office key a few days later and informed Shelby that her and Finn were a thing of the past. Shelby insisted the Rachel keep the key in case she or any other Troubletone needed it. So far she hadn't caught anyone having sex in her office, so that was a plus.

A week after Rachel came running into Shelby's office nearly in tears another problem arose. It became apparent that with two amazing dancers who liked to choreograph amazing dances that they needed more room; particularly with the added members. So Shelby set up a meeting with Figgins about moving to a larger area for practice.

It started off well, and Figgins had agreed that the Troubletones deserved a larger place to practice because they were going to Regionals. They were discussing possible places to practice when Will barged in. Figgins had just offered her almost exclusive use of the auditorium (excluding school performances). Shelby didn't know how Will had found out about the meeting (her money was on Finn, who had followed her from outside the cafeteria and probably would have tried to talk to her about God knows what if she hadn't stepped into the Principal's office). Her suspicions were only confirmed when it turn out that Will didn't even know what the meeting was for.

"What's going on?"

Shelby sighed. "Nothing that concerns you, William. I'm just trying to find a new place for the Troubletones to practice. If it concerns you so much, you can sit in on our meeting."

Will scoffed, but took a seat. Shelby ignored him and turned back to Figgins.

"The auditorium isn't really appropriate for daily meetings and practices. We need somewhere smaller where we can still dance."

Figgins nodded and looked through several folders.

"William still has the choir room booked for Glee…"

"New Directions are still practicing each week. You can't kick them out. Where would they practice then?"

Figgins turned over a monthly timetable of the times the choir room was booked.

"The New Directions don't use the choir room all the time. I'm sure you can work out a schedule to share the room."

Will shook his head. "No. That's just what I officially booked when the New Directions started, since then we've started practicing all the time. There really isn't any spare time."

Shelby rubbed her eyes as Figgins tried to get Will to agree to share the choir room. William was lying. There was no way that they used the choir room all time. Half of the club was on the football team and had practice three afternoons a week, while the other members were all part of other clubs that took up time. No one in New Directions was devoting all their time to glee. She sighed loudly and stood up.

"This is going nowhere. If William wants to act like a petulant toddler and cling onto the choir room then let him. I'll talk to you later, Principal Figgins if I figure something out."

With that, Shelby left and went back to her office, ignoring the hovering Finn in the hall. He opened his mouth to say something, but she was already too far away.

Shelby Corcoran – 9

William Schuester – 9

/-/-/-/-/

It was later that same day, near the end of last period when Becky arrived at Shelby's office and told her that Coach Sylvester wanted to see her. Becky led her to the gym, rather than Sue's office, and Sue was waiting for them.

"You backed down from William. That's weak." Sue said dismissively.

"I'd prefer to say I chose not to fight. There really wasn't any reason to argue with him."

"Of course there was; winning that argument."

Shelby shrugged. "Too bad, it's in the past now."

"Too bad indeed. I have a proposition for you, Broadway. I'm going to solve your practice room problem, and you're going to owe me. Deal? Good. You'll use the gym when the Cheerios aren't practicing, which shouldn't be a problem anyway. The gym is always booked for me, the plus side of actually being a winner. I'll see you later."

Sue turned and left the gym, Becky on her heel. Shelby stared after them. Well it seemed that her problem was fixed, but she could still have some fun with it.

Shelby made her way to Principal Figgins' office and knocked lightly on his door.

"If the offer is still there, I'd like to have access to the auditorium."

Figgins nodded and grinned, glad that he didn't have to mediate between Shelby and Will.

If Will was going to make her life hard then Shelby was going to make his hard. Just wait until he tried to book the auditorium and Figgins had to come to her to confirm it was available.

Shelby Corcoran – 10

William Schuester – 9

/-/-/-/-/

**manatees-have-thick-skin**: I think I've made myself ship Sholly writing this; and Shelby/Mr. Motta. I want a mascot bear too. :P

**LuvtheJEm**: My exams were fine, but now I've got course work. :S I thought of 'Finndependent' and made sure to use it.

**myMuseisMusic**,**OTHangels**, Guest, **HeavenlyHorcrux**: I'm glad you guys are enjoying my story, and I hope the wait didn't put you off. Thanks for reviewing. :D

**XanDany**: I actually barely read stories with Shelby in them. RIB sort of butchered her character… I'm glad you gave mine a go though. :)

**mixtapesandcellmates****: **The fact that Finchel is such a destructive relationship is actually what I hate the most because people might actually think it's fine when it's not. Urgh!

**Luthiem Vardamir**: Sorry for the wait again. :( But, yay, story! I had a lot of fun with the Breadstix waiter. I wrote a bit of a story about him in my other story 'Brittana Prompts'. It's chapter 19 if you want to have a look, but there are slight spoilers for this story. You're right in that Nationals and the season finale sucked. I've actually just seen 'The New Rachel' on TV tonight.

**bforethesunsets**: I'm glad you like it and that you think it's new. Sorry it took so long to get another chapter out.

**ataleoffiction**: Well, you asked for Mr. Motta back story. Tada! You'll see some more next chapter.

**sharkgeek**: I really wish Sam could have joined too. And I probably would have let Artie (cause he's been cool since Brittana officially got together) join to, but it wouldn't have worked well and they'd have sounded wrong.

**Jamiemazing**: Okay, I can see you being confused about the ships. :P It's mainly Brittana, in that I'm telling the story from Brittana's perspective, but everyone else is cannon as long as it fits into the events and characterisations that I'm using. For example, Shelby and Puck have kissed, but she won't go any further with Puck because to me that was RIB screwing up her character. And the Sugar/Artie/Rory love triangle won't be the same because the situations will be different. I have added quite a bit of subtext though, because I think it's fun.

**Ninaddict**: You're not the first to say that, but I love it every time. I'd love to write for Glee. Then I could pay off my student loan. Thanks for reviewing. :D


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Glee, much to my disappointment.

**Author's Note:** This was a really long wait, and I know that. I'm sorry, but I'm on summer break now (until March) and I hope to finish the story by then at the latest. Happy reading.

/-/-/-/-/

**Interlude – Santana Leads by Many (Part Four)**

Tina, Mike, Santana, Brittany, Rachel and Quinn were all at the Lima Bean after school. Santana had originally organized the afternoon meeting to be just her, Brittany, Quinn and Rachel as a way to slowly get closer to Quinn again. She knew that Quinn had a weird affection towards Rachel (which she couldn't really tease Quinn about because Rachel minus Finn was a lot easier to handle and Santana would grudgingly admit that Rachel was growing on her, but only to Brittany) and Santana was going to use every advantage she could. Mike and Tina had already been at the Lima Bean when they arrived and it had seemed natural to sit together. Brittany and Mike were going over theoretical dance moves like the normally did when they were in the same room while everyone else chatted about whatever came to mind. The afternoon so far had been easy and very laid back.

So, to say that Santana was surprised when Rachel and Tina tensed up when Sebastian Smyth approached with a threat not to use Michael Jackson at Regionals was an understatement. Mercedes had decided on Michael for her song of the week and the Troubletones had soon voted on a two week Michael dedication as they had all wanted perform Michael after New Directions' Sectionals performance. No one in the Troubletones wanted to pass up performing Michael, even if it was only to the rest of the choir. All in all, Sebastian hadn't made a particularly good first impression.

"Oh look, it's the girl flower power squad. Shouldn't you be parading around like you think you're the first women to ever even consider women's power?"

Santana turned in her seat and looked up at the tall weasel of a boy standing behind her. Santana stared at him with confusion. Brittany didn't look up from her drink. Quinn, looked like she couldn't care less and Rachel and Tina were glaring something fierce. Mike gently laid a hand on Tina's knee and gave Sebastian a dirty look.

"Look Warbler, I don't know who you are…" Santana started before Sebastian interrupted her.

"The name is Sebastian Smyth."

"As I was saying, I don't know who you are, and I don't care."

That was a bit of a lie, she had heard about a Warbler called Sebastian who had stirred up trouble in Kurt's love life, but had never actually met him.

"You should." Sebastian said with a smug half grin. "I'm your competition."

Brittany rolled her eyes. "Duh, you're in the Warbler uniform that Blaine used to sing to Kurt in. I liked it a lot more than his suspenders; he doesn't wear them as well as I do."

Santana turned and looked Brittany up and down. "You know it, babe. I bet you could even pull off wearing his awful bow ties."

"They're not awful." Sebastian said hotly, though he looked embarrassed about his outburst as soon as the words left his mouth.

"As America's most fashionable teenager I have to disagree. I was on a magazine, Blaine's bowties weren't."

Sebastian opened his mouth to speak but Quinn quickly waved a hand dismissively at him. "I'm assuming you came over to us for a reason."

Sebastian smiled at them smugly again. "You can't sing Michael Jackson at Regionals."

They all shared a confused look with each other. Rachel started to speak but stopped when Quinn squeezed her hand and tilted her head at Santana. Obviously she wanted to watch Santana handle this. It wasn't unusual; Santana remembered a time when she and Quinn competed to make as many people cry in a school day as possible. The only rule had been that they weren't allowed to interrupt each other, and it made Santana happy that Quinn seemed to be enforcing that now.

"Okay," Santana said slowly. "I'll bite. Why can't we perform Michael at Regionals?"

Sebastian sipped slowly from his coffee, still smiling smugly. "Because the Warblers are and we're performing first."

Santana narrowed her eyes at him and opened her mouth as if she was going to say something but just ended up closing her mouth and shaking her head.

"Sure, whatever you say, Fievel. You take your wannabe Disney Prince haircut and get lost on your way back to the gay bar you call a school; preferably getting hit by a bus on the way."

Sebastian huffed and took a napkin off their table to write something on it. "If you somehow gain some courage and stop letting your girlfriend own you, I'll be in this car park tonight, we can finish this Warbler style."

Santana laughed and spoke up just after Sebastian turned around to leave. "I don't know Bitchlet, I'm quite fond of her owning me; it makes for some fun times. I guess we'll see if I, what was it? - 'Get some courage' - in time to show you up."

Sebastian left with another huff and a snapped "Be there."

Their group was quite for a few seconds before Brittany giggled. When everyone looked at her she grinned. "It does make for some fun times."

Quinn grimaced slightly at the mention of Santana and Brittany's sex life (she already knew too much from not-so-sneaky trysts at sleepovers and in the Cheerios locker room), but otherwise ignored the comment.

"So, this is news to me. When did we decide to do Michael Jackson for Regionals?" Tina questioned quietly.

Rachel frowned slightly. "Actually, how are songs for competitions decided? Shelby hasn't mentioned it."

"It's a group vote thing based off of the songs we perform each week. If we can't pick three that stand out we all offer up suggestions. Brittany's solo was one of those. We were going to do 'Candyman' but we decided that the performance really depended on the costumes and we wouldn't be able to use those dresses for the competition. Shelby has veto if she thinks something won't work and we tend to listen to her suggestions." Mercedes explained while Santana read the address Sebastian had left her.

Brittany quickly snatched up the napkin. "You're not going, San."

"I would really like to show him up, Britt. I'd _really, really_ like to."

Brittany shook her head. "Nope, no violence."

They stared at each other for a while before Santana nodded and held her hand out. Brittany handed the napkin back for Santana to study.

"Isn't that the address of that huge apartment complex that Sugar said her dad owned?"

Brittany leaned into Santana to see the napkin clearly. "Yup."

Santana drained the last of her coffee and started to get up.

"Hold on!" Rachel said loudly. "Where are you going and what are you doing? We need to talk about how to deal with Sebastian, he threatened out team and as part of that team I can't let you just go off and do something g that might negatively effect us."

"I'm not going to do anything that will 'negatively effect us', Hobbit, so shut your trap."

"While that is an honourable point of view I find it hard to believe. The Santana I know would have threatened to hurt Sebastian and would be planning some sort of revenge."

Quinn sniggered. "She's got a point Lopez, what happened to that Santana?"

Santana looked away from her team members, picked up her bag and linked her pinky with Brittany's. "That Santana got outed to the state of Ohio and is recognised everywhere in this town as 'that lesbian cheerleader'. That Santana got disowned by the woman who raised her. That Santana learnt that there are a lot of people out there to be angry at and that most of them aren't worth it. That Santana learnt that the best way to make her girlfriend happy was to ignore all the comments and pretend that the looks from complete strangers doesn't hurt. You can't fight all the time and that loser isn't worth my energy. I have bigger things to worry about than some meer cat who is obviously crushing hard on the boy dwarf Porcelain is shacking up with. Right, babe?"

Brittany grinned and kissed Santana on the cheek. "Right."

"Besides, I have something else in mind for Warbler Weasel."

/-/-/-/-/

Brittany drove them to Sugar's house. Santana didn't particularly want to knock on the door because Sugar and Mr. Motta were having a father-daughter afternoon, and interrupting seemed like a really jerkish thing to do. Particularly now that Santana knew Sugar didn't have a mother to spend her time with when her father was away on business, just a bossy housekeeper. But she needed to, because Sebastian Slimeball Smyth seemed to pose a threat (a small one, but a threat none the less) to the Troubletones, and Santana wouldn't have that.

Mr. Motta answered the door and Santana could see confusion on his face before he realised who they were.

"Santana and Brittany right? You're in the Troubletones?"

Brittany nodded happily. "Yes, sir!"

"Are you here to see Sugar?"

Santana shook her head. "Actually, we're here to see you. Can we come in?"

Mr. Motta stood aside and gestured for them to enter the house. He led them deeper into the house, but paused for a second, unsure as to where to lead them. Brittany took over and skipped into the lounge where she dropped down onto the sofa and pulled a surprised Sugar into a hug. If Sugar had been annoyed at the interruption to her father-daughter day (a movie day from the looks of the paused movie on the large television screen), she didn't show it and hugged Brittany back. Mr. Motta took one of the arm chairs and Santana sat next to Brittany.

"Hey Sugar."

"Hi Santana, Brittany. What are you doing here?"

Brittany snuggled into the couch, leaning on Sugar and putting her legs over Santana's lap. "We were at the Lima Bean - remember we invited you but you decided to spend time with your dad instead, which I think is really cool – when this guy with really big hair came up to us and threatened us into not using Michael Jackson at Regionals. Except he's an idiot but a mean idiot, so Sanny has a plan that involves your dad."

Mr. Motta looked absolutely bewildered, but Sugar just nodded.

"When did we decide to do Michael Jackson? I'm amazing at his songs, so that'd be cool, but I didn't know we had decided anything yet."

Santana smirked. "We haven't; but Sebastian seemed so sure of it and he challenged me to some sort of …" Santana screwed up her face in confusion. "sing off, I guess? Anyway, he gave me this address."

Santana handed the napkin over to Mr. Motta. He looked at it for a second before realization dawned on his face.

"Well, I think you can leave this to me." He said with an amused smile. "I'm sure a few extra security patrols around the car park would prove very interesting."

/-/-/-/-/

Sugar ran into Shelby's class room waving a DVD over her head. "Daddy gave it to me this morning. Wait until you see his face."

Shelby somewhat reluctantly allowed them to play the video even if they were meant to be practicing a rendition of 'Smooth Criminal'. The video showed Sebastian and a few of the Warbler's entering an almost empty car park and waiting around for a few minutes quietly chatting. The only strange thing was the rather large slushie cup on the floor, half hidden behind a pillar in the car park. Suddenly one of the Warblers tensed and turned towards Sebastian, trying to warn him or otherwise get his attention. But it was too late, as several uniformed guards entered the car park each laying a hand on the shoulder of a Warbler. Sebastian started to well, but was quickly pulled off of the screen. The television screen turned black.

Shelby stared at the blank screen for a bit before she spoke. "I don't know what that was, I doubt it was illegal because you're all good girls, but I didn't see it. I wasn't here and it was never played. So, Smooth Criminal."

/-/-/-/-/

**Important Author's Note:** I'm coming up to Regionals, and I want to know what sort of performances you'd like to see. So I've put a poll up on my profile, but you can also review your preference. Here's a handy list to choose from:

Santana-Mercedes Duet

Rachel-Quinn Duet

Santana-Rachel Duet

Quinn-Tina Duet

Tina-Mercedes Duet

Quinn-Mercedes Duet

Brittany-Santana Duet

Mercedes Solo

Santana Solo

Rachel Solo

Tina Solo

Another group number

/-/-/-/-/

**MusicFlowsWithin****:** Ever since the whole Emma/Carl thing I lost all respect for Will acting like an adult. I know he was pretty bad before, but that was the last straw for me.

**mixtapesandcellmates****:** I'm glad you're enjoying it. The Finchel engagement was just useless, and the fact that they ended the engagement in the show is just proof of that because it really served no purpose.

**manatees-have-thick-skin****:** I have quite the strong head-canon, which means that those little facts will often pop up. I'm glad you're still following.

**living in the movie scene****:** This didn't start out as a bashing fic, but it has sort of ended up like that. The sad part is that it only my intention to pint out how badly some of the characters were managed. I'm sorry it took so long, but I'm now on summer break until March and I hope to have finished this story by then. :)


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee. Sadly.

**Interlude – Santana Leads by Many (Part Five)**

When Santana had first seen Mr. Schuester quickly leave Brittany's night school Spanish class she had been both surprised and curious, but mostly she was suspicious. The next day she had gone to Spanish (rather than skipping it like she normally did, just coming in for tests and assignments and the occasional day when Brittany wanted her to) and not too surprisingly Mr. Schue still couldn't actually teach the subject. Something must have clicked for him to realize that. She went the next day, and the day after that and would continue to go until she had figured out what his game was.

Brittany had been taking night classes in Spanish since the beginning of the year. She had been able to keep up during sophomore year and most of junior, when Santana could tutor her without it leading to sweet lady kisses, but now it was pretty much impossible. Brittany thought Santana speaking Spanish was far too sexy to resist and sweet lady kisses were always quick to follow, taking up all of the Spanish study time. Santana's solution had been to drive Brittany to and from night school, with the added bonus of getting some of her Head Cheerleader duties done during that time. For some reason Sue always seemed to be there and willing to discuss practices and routines. Sue said it was because she didn't trust the 'immigrant Spanish teacher' to not steal something at the end of his lessons, but like all of Sue's reasons for her outrageous views, Santana didn't quite believe it.

Santana and Brittany arrived at their normal time and Santana noticed Mr. Schuester's car already in the parking lot. Brittany normally insisted that they arrive earlier than everyone else so that Santana could get started on Cheerios things earlier and so that Brittany could have a private moment with David Martinez to check her homework and ask any questions. After years of being teased, Brittany wasn't as confident asking questions around her peers. Santana noticed Will talking to David when she dropped Brittany off outside the night classroom and headed towards Sue's office. She wasn't going to be able to think about anything but what Mr. Schue was planning all night now. Damn.

As always, Brittany was one of the last to leave because she chatted with the other people in her class. One older lady called Carla, loved Brittany because she looked just like her granddaughter. It was actually kind of nice because she often brought cookies to share with the class and when she did she always brought an extra for Brittany to give to Santana (away from the school and Sue's ever vigilant eyes). But Brittany's popularity always meant one thing; at the end of the night Brittany was always the centre of attention of about half of the class as everyone shared tidbits from their week. In the beginning Santana had always waited outside. She loved watching Brittany being Brittany but eventually Carla noticed her and had invited her into the discussion. Carla loved Santana as much as she loved Brittany and soon Santana got to sort of know everyone in the class, including David, Brittany's teacher.

It was two lessons after Santana had first spotted Mr. Schuester that David asked to talk to Santana and Brittany while everyone else was leaving. Carla invited herself, stating that it wasn't 'proper' for two young ladies to be left alone with an older man.

"I was hoping you could tell me about your school's glee club. Brittany mentioned you two were in it."

"There are two clubs now. One run by Shelby and one run by Mr. Schue. Why?" Brittany explained.

David frowned slightly. "Okay, it's just that Will – uh, Mr. Schuester asked me to perform to the glee club to encourage Spanish songs. I was hoping you could help me. I'm not sure what to perform."

Santana smiled. She didn't really know David. They talked at the end of class occasionally, but he was a nice guy and he was helping Brittany out, so she'd help him out. Not to mention that she was sure to get a few answers about what Mr. Schue was doing if she helped David.

/-/-/-/-/

The next time Santana talked to David, he was telling her about his LMFAO performance and his plans to perform later that week. He still didn't have a song, but by the end of the conversation, David and Santana had worked out a song to sing together. David thought it might be nice for the Glee club to see another student singing in fluent Spanish; it would prove that it could be done.

Santana had been surprised to find out that Mr. Schuester's interest in proving he could speak Spanish had more to do with getting the tenure than actually teaching his students (news of a tenure did explain Sue's weird rant at her earlier in the week). Though it wasn't the first time he had proven to be more of a 'preaching' type teacher than a 'practicing' one. More than anything though, she was glad to see Figgins taking her complaint against Mr. Schue seriously.

Lodging the complaint had been a spur of the moment thing, and Santana was a little ashamed to admit it was after a test in which she didn't get a hundred percent (even though she should have, and even after being proven wrong Mr. Schue wouldn't change the mark) but it didn't change the fact that Mr. Schuester was a horrible Spanish teacher and if Santana could prove that, she would.

The next day, Santana was leaving Spanish when a thought hit her. She turned back to Will.

"I can't wait to see the song you perform to Glee club this week, Mr. Schue."

He frowned at her. "What?"

"Well, David asked me to perform with him, so I'll be sticking around in the auditorium to see your song. You know, the one to defend your Spanish teacher honour." She smirked at him. "Like I said, I can't wait."

/-/-/-/-/-/

As it turned out, Shelby did want the Troubletones to practice that day as Regionals were coming ever closer. As a result, the Troubletones were all sitting in the back row of the auditorium with the exceptions of Brittany, who was sitting in the front row to watch her girlfriend, and Santana, who was backstage with David. New Directions also sat in the front, but looked uneasy that not only were the Troubletones there, but that Santana would be performing in their 'Spanish Week' theme. Mr. Schuester had tried to get the Troubletones to leave, but since he hadn't checked the availability of the auditorium he had to let them stay after Shelby pulled up the roster showing that it was clearly booked for the Troubletones and had even made a big fuss over whether she was going to let the New Directions perform in the auditorium at all that day. Eventually she 'gave in' but made a loud comment about it only being for Santana's sake.

Santana and David's rendition of 'La Isla Bonita' was met with loud claps from everyone (even if some of the claps from certain New Directions were clearly only for David, the song had been amazing). Brittany jumped up on stage and pulled Santana into a hug.

"That was awesome! You were so hot." She turned to David. "Gracias por bailar con Santana."

David grinned at her as he was pulled into the hug too.

Santana smirked at Mr. Schuester as they walked past him. He looked shocked that Brittany was thanking David for performing with Santana in conversational Spanish. Santana knew that Brittany didn't really participate in her night school Spanish class because she didn't want to make a fool of herself, but that didn't mean she wasn't learning. Brittany still wasn't actually sure in Mr. Schuester had noticed her in the same night school class as him though, so it could be that too.

"I'm looking forward to your performance, Mr. Schue."

Mr. Schue got up and headed back stage to get ready while the Troubletones (and Sam who had migrated to the back of the auditorium to sit with Mercedes) congratulated Santana on her performance. David sat at the front with New Directions. Slowly the lights dimmed for Mr. Schue's performance.

At the end of his performance Santana was gob smacked, there was no other world for how utterly amazed she was at the horrible performance. David just seemed kind of confused. New Directions clapped; as did a few of the Troubletones, but that seemed to be out of politeness as the Cheerios definitely didn't clap (though they were under strict orders from Sue to never encourage Mr. Schuester).

"What _was _that?"

Mr. Schuester's grin faded a bit and Santana exclamation. "I was being an authentic…"

"There was nothing 'authentic' about that." Santana waved a hand dismissively and started down the aisle towards the stage. "You went from La Cucaracha to a bullfighting mariachi. Why don't you just dress up as the Taco Bell Chihuahua and bark the theme song to Dora the Explorer? You don't even know enough to be embarrassed about these stereotypes you're perpetuating."

Mr. Schuester's eyes widened. "It was you. You're the one who complained about me."

"Yes, and I'd do it again after that terrible performance."

"You're barely even in any of my classes, what right do you have to complain?"

"Is there any wonder I skip your classes when you're this degrading to my nationality without even considering what you're doing. You're not doing your job and it's affecting my grades, I have every right to complain."

"This isn't a joke, Santana. This is my job, my livelihood."

"And this is my education, though it sure seems like a joke to you. Why did you even take a job as a Spanish teacher if you can't speak it?"

Mr. Schuester looked away. "It was the only job available."

"And you wonder why I made a complaint." Santana sighed. "I used to look up to you, Mr. Schue. You always sucked at Spanish, but at least you were someone I could respect when we were in Glee. Now I can't even look _at_ you. You played favourites a few too many times and now you've lost half of your Glee club because you couldn't see that there were other people to worry about. Well we got sick of that, and we left. You can be as angry as you want about losing your club and losing your chance at nationals, but you need to lay the blame where it's deserved. And for once, that's not at Finn's feet, it's at yours. Because if you had reined Captain Blubber in and treated him like you treat everyone else, you might still have a Glee club. But you didn't, and you don't."

No one said anything for a long time. Eventually Shelby stood up.

"We have to practise, so if you could please leave it would be much appreciated."

/-/-/-/-/-/

Mr. Schuester had been weirdly quiet since Santana had chewed him out in the auditorium, but that didn't prepare Santana for the news that he was leaving his Spanish teacher post and becoming a History teacher. It was oddly satisfying to be proven that she had had an effect somehow. It even made her slightly respect Figgins. Right up until he told her she couldn't kiss her girlfriend on the first Valentine's Day they were celebrating together (that time in kindergarten when Brittany made her a card didn't count, though Santana still had the card). Santana couldn't decide if being called 'teen lesbian' and thus identified solely though her sexuality or the restriction on her ability to kiss her girlfriend hurt more. Or maybe it was that Shelby witnessed the event in the hallway and didn't seem to do anything about it that hurt the most.

Santana hadn't expected to be called into Figgins' office yet again, but there she was with Brittany. She really hadn't expected the hurried apology from Figgins, but when he muttered 'Please don't sue the school', Santana figured she might owe Shelby a mental apology of her own. Because that sounded a lot like someone had stepped in to play on Figgins' fears, and that sounded a lot like Shelby.

Shelby met them outside of Figgins' office (which they'd only been allowed to leave after a promise to not sue the school).

"Maybe you should cut down on the PDA a little. Lead by example or something." Shelby said with a smirk. "Not that anything would actually stop a couple of teenagers from making out."

She shook her head and looked at Figgins' closed office door. "I don't know how that man has been Principal for so long and remains so blissfully unaware of everything to do with teenagers. It's quite astounding."

Brittany grinned. "It's probably a defence mechanism."

All that would make this day perfect was dinner at Breadstix with Brittany. It was a good thing Santana had planned ahead and made a booking, because Breadstix was packed on Valentine's Day.

/-/-/-/-/

**Cissy Black Malfoy**: Your vote has been counted. :) I'm glad you liked it.

**mixtapesandcellmates**: There won't be any more Faberry than there is in the actual show, because I'm trying to keep things kind of close to canon. That being said, I'm sure having fun writing the sub-text of it.

**santanalopez4ever**: I've counted your vote. Thanks. :) I'm glad you liked the chapter.

**manatees-have-thick-skin**: I'm glad you liked it, I was a bit iffy on that section. I re-wrote it a couple of times until I was happy-ish with it.

**ataleoffiction**: Vote is counted! Tina has been though a lot hasn't she? I feel so bad that her first competition solo was probably only given to her because it was an Asian song and she's Asian.

**Guest 1**: I'm glad you like it. :)

**Guest 2**: I hope this is a quick enough update for you. :P


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